Bitter leadership battle

A fractious campaign for leadership of the French centreRight was ending last night with party members convinced that neither of the contenders was a match for Nicolas Sarkozy. Francois Fillon, 58, Sarkozy’s former prime minister, and JeanFrancois Cope, 48, the Mayor of Meaux, were vying to become chairman of the Union for a Popular Movement. The post amounts to pole position in the race to challenge President Francois Hollande in the 2017 election. Fillon, a staid figure whose wife is Welsh, had accused the more aggressive Cope of being a pale imitation of Sarkozy. ‘‘He is Sarko without the talent,’’ Fillon said. Cope had described his rival as the embodiment of ‘‘opposition in carpet slippers’’.