"Marion was considerate enough to warn Marine Le Pen and tell her it was a personal and professional initiative, not at all a political comeback," the party's spokesman, Sébastien Chenu, said.
For much of this year centre-right rival Juppe has outpaced Sarkozy in opinion polls, but the man who was president between 2007 and 2012 is making a comeback among party supporters, a recent survey showed, in a sign the battle could be more open than many thought.
First, he built on his escalating war of words with new neighbour Jimmy Page by promising to dig a big hole in his garden and fill it "full of shit"; next he went about offending the Russian oligarchy with the deliberately tasteless comeback single Party Like a Russian; more recently he was found telling this newspaper about his dabblings with the occult and a debilitating Minstrels addiction.
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, will also appear on "This Week" to talk about the future of the Republican Party and a potential comeback for the party in the 2016 elections.
A 39-year-old Democrat in his first run for office emerged Friday as the winner of a hotly contested Congressional race in upstate New York, dashing Republican hopes for the start of a comeback after the party's disastrous November losses.
Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday rallied the Republican faithful and predicted a comeback for the party in Illinois as he hosted his first Governor's Day at the Illinois State Fair.
McGrath, however, said she believes she can be part of the comeback for the party both in the state and nationally.
However, while it's inevitable that Christmas 2003 will see Slade's vintage classic making yet another comeback at office parties everywhere, perhaps one thing we can avoid next year is a repeat of 2002's retro statistics.
