The current secretary general of the UMP, who hopes to be elected president of the party in two months, says he realised he is “breaking a taboo” by talking about anti-white racism in the paper called “Manifesto to destigmatise the right”.

Extracts in Le Figaro Magazine reveal an anecdote Copé tells of a mother in his hometown of Meaux, north east of Paris.

The mother opened her front door one day to a teenager who pushed his way into the house and stole her son’s game console.

After speaking to the parents of the teenager and several neighbours to get the console back, she was told “get lost if you’re not happy, Gaul woman.”

“[This] is just as unacceptable as other forms of racism, and we should talk about it, like we condemn all other forms of discrimination,” Copé wrote.

“These kinds of things are not obvious when you live in Paris, in media and political spheres where the majority of the directors are French and white, born to French parents.

“In these microcosms, the lack of diversity limits the presence of people of colour, or of foreign origins. But let’s look at the reality before us – the opposite situation is found in lots of areas in the suburbs.”

The paper also prioritises education in France, talks about the work of Sarkozy and Chirac and suggests what the UMP should become now.