Key players in Sarkozy financing scandal and aftermath

A snowballing corruption scandal and allegations that former French president Nicolas Sarkozy's 2012 election campaign bills were falsely passed off as party expenses claimed the scalp of opposition UMP leader Jean-Francois Cope on Tuesday.

Here is a list of the key players caught up in the affair and its aftermath:

The 50-year-old Cope, who was forced to resign over the latest revelations, is a fiercely ambitious politician close to Sarkozy and known to nurture presidential ambitions.

His image took a beating after a corruption scandal that saw him accused of awarding lucrative contracts to a public relations firm owned by his friends who overcharged the party for organising rallies.

The scandal deepened on Monday with claims that Sarkozy's expenses for his failed 2012 re-election bid were fraudulently passed off as party expenses by the same PR firm.

Cope became party chief after a bitter and potentially ruinous tussle with Sarkozy's former prime minister Francois Fillon and his tenure has been marked by a series of setbacks. The UMP under Cope suffered its first ever defeat to the right-wing National Front in Sunday's European elections.

Cope, a mayor from the town of Meaux on Paris's northeastern fringes, has been known to make controversial statements including a comment that "anti-white racism" was on the rise in France. That sparked criticism that he was adopting the language of the National Front.

The hyperactive former president is widely expected to make a comeback bid in the 2017 election although he has not publicly spelt this out so far. But before doing so, the 59-year-old Sarkozy has to get his name cleared in a raft of scandals involving alleged irregularities in his election funding.

The most serious of these is that he allegedly took money from former Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi. However Sarkozy has been cleared in another case: that he took illegal payments from France's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Lilian Bettencourt.

Since his 2012 defeat Sarkozy has been travelling around the world on the lucrative lecture circuit and attending concerts featuring his wife, former supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni.

Sarkozy was rapped by France's constitutional court for exceeding campaign spending limits in 2012 and the UMP was ordered to repay some 10 million euros.

The low-profile former prime minister has been patiently waiting in the wings to assume control of the party and has made no secret that he would like to take a bash at the French presidency in 2017.

The 60-year-old lost out to Cope in a vitriolic battle for the UMP's leadership but is a shrewd politician. Following Cope's resignation, Fillon and two other former prime ministers will lead the party until elections are held later this year.

Although Fillon was seen by critics to be devoid of charisma during Sarkozy's presidency, he was popularly regarded as being a disciplined and measured politician and a safe pair of hands.

Juppe, a former prime minister and the popular mayor of Bordeaux, is a pillar of the party and wields enormous clout. He is widely regarded as the voice of reason.

The 68-year-old had openly voiced his discontent after the spat between Cope and Fillon for the UMP's leadership threatened to bring the party to its knees and issued stern warnings to both, helping end the infighting.

Juppe is part of the triumvirate which will lead the party until the leadership vote. He is regarded as a unifying figure and could be a presidential candidate when the next elections come up in three years.

Cope's resignation was partly forced by the UMP's up-and-coming leaders including Xavier Bertrand, 49 and Francois Baroin, 48, -- both ex-ministers -- as well as Sarkozy's former spokeswoman Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a 40-year-old who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Paris in recent local elections. The trio had demanded Cope's resignation and succeeded in getting it.