Francois Fillon (left) and Jean-Francois Cope engaged in a bitter war of words during the election
The two rivals in the disputed leadership contest for France’s conservative opposition UMP party are due to attend a face-to-face meeting.
Earlier, representatives of ex-PM Francois Fillon and party secretary general Jean-Francois Cope walked out of a meeting over ballot disputes.
Both scored almost exactly 50% of the vote in the contest to replace ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Each side is accusing the other of electoral fraud.
Former prime minister and foreign minister Alain Juppe, who has been called in to help end the crisis, said he was pessimistic ahead of the talks.
“I am doing everything I can to succeed even if there is very little chance,” Mr Juppe told French media. “If they do not accept [my conditions], I will withdraw, it’s no big deal, they will sort themselves out.”
The two men have agreed to meet for the first time since the crisis began with Mr Juppe as mediator.
Mr Cope officially won the UMP election last Sunday, but Mr Fillon demanded a recount after it emerged 1,300 votes had not been counted.
Mr Fillon says votes from three overseas French territories, omitted from the original count, would hand him victory by 26 votes.
He lost Sunday’s ballot of the party membership by just 98 votes.
Never could the French have conceived that these two men, who until very recently were side by side helping run the country, loathed each other with such venom, says the BBC’s Hugh Schofield.
The two men represent two wings of the party – Fillon the centrist, Cope the right-winger – and that divide’s aggravated by their very different personalities: Fillon the grave, Cope the brash, our correspondent adds.
French opposition rivals to meet http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/64288000/jpg/_64288875_016472604-1.jpg
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق