French politics are characterised by two politically opposed groupings: one left-wing, centred on the French Socialist Party, and the other right-wing, centred previously on the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), then its successor the UMP Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which in 2015 was renamed Les Républicains [REF].
France uses a civil legal system;[REF] that is, law arises primarily from written statutes; judges are not to make law, but merely to interpret it (though the amount of judicial interpretation in certain areas makes it equivalent to case law).