By Geert De Clercq
NICE, France (Reuters) - France's ruling UMP party staged a high-profile rally in Nice on Sunday in a direct challenge to the far-right Front National (FN) as the Front's charismatic leader was addressing her party's annual conference in the city.
President Nicolas Sarkozy's party gathered some of its biggest guns in the Mediterranean city, including party chairman Jean-Francois Cope, presidential advisor Henri Guaino and Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who spearheads the UMP's drive against the FN. The rally was organised by Nice's mayor Christian Estrosi, a former UMP minister.
"Right and far-right are playing cat and mouse on their home turf," wrote local daily Nice-Matin. Nice is a UMP stronghold but in the second round of local elections in March, the FN won more than 40 percent of the vote on the Cote d'Azur.
"The French right needs to have a critique of the Front National, because the Front primarily does damage to the ideas of the right by pretending that they are a harder version of the right, which is wrong," Kosciusko-Morizet told Reuters.
Kosciusko-Morizet, who has written a book about the FN and has debated its leader Marine Le Pen on television, said the FN was trying to present itself as a new party.
"They say the new Front National has arrived, but it is all false," she said.
SOFTER IMAGE
Since taking over from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in January, Marine Le Pen has softened the Front's image, toning down the anti-immigration rhetoric and expelling from the party young hotheads who had been photographed making the Nazi salute.
The party under Marine Le Pen has also put its anti-immigration and security agenda, largely taken over by Sarkozy's UMP, on the backburner and is presenting what it says is a radical economic alternative.
Le Pen wants France to exit the euro, which she says is overvalued by at least 40 percent and is making it impossible for French companies to compete internationally. She also wants to bring back import tariffs to protect French producers from cheap Chinese imports.
Her shift in emphasis is a response to growing fears in France that austerity and Europe's debt crisis could eat away at the array of social services treasured by many citizens.
Le Pen, who, briefly, was ahead of Sarkozy and the main socialist contenders in opinion polls for the 2012 presidential election, has slipped back to third place with just under 20 percent of voting intentions for the first round in April.
She said of the UMP's choice of venue for its rally on Sunday: "The fact that they are here shows their fear and disarray. They know they are losing their voters to us."
French political parties traditionally hold conferences in late August and early September. Eight months ahead of the presidential election, they are gathering huge media interest.
Guaino, an advisor to Sarkozy, denied he was in Nice to counter the Front or that the UMP had any fear of Marine Le Pen.
He told reporters late on Saturday: "I was kindly invited by Christian Estrosi, so I decided to come. We have no fear whatsoever of the Front National. The only fear I have is that we may not be able to find the words and ideas to respond to the aspirations of the French people. If we do not find an answer to their despair, they will vote for extreme parties." (Editing by Janet Lawrence)
