The week at a glance...Europe

Paris

Sarkozy’s party splits: France’s main center-right party has split in a bout of nasty political infighting, complete with accusations of ballot-box stuffing and other cheating. The election to choose the head of the Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP, ended more than a week ago when the secretary-general, Jean-François Copé, was declared the winner by 98 out of 170,000 votes. But then it emerged that the 1,300 votes cast by UMP members in three overseas departments of France had been overlooked: Had they been counted, the winner, by 26 votes, would have been François Fillon, who was prime minister when Nicolas Sarkozy was president. Copé was confirmed anyway by an appeals committee that he, as party secretary-general, controls. Alleging “fraud on an industrial scale,” Fillon broke away to form his own party.

Brussels

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Milk protest: A brigade of tractors manned by thousands of European dairy farmers rolled into Brussels this week to protest a proposed drop in milk subsidies. Massed outside the European Parliament building, some farmers blasted milk at riot police with high-pressure hoses. The European Milk Board, an industry group, said more than 150,000 dairy farmers had gone out of business across the Continent in the past three years. In Belgium, farmers complain, it costs $0.49 to produce a quart of milk that fetches just $0.32 wholesale. “It’s very simple: You can’t live off milk anymore,” said French farmer Leopold Gruget. “If I survive, it’s thanks to European aid.”