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Defence Minister to fight Royal

Jason Burke

The candidacy of Alliot-Marie raises hackles of French politicians

Paris: She spent last week pressing the flesh, giving interviews to carefully chosen journalists and making weighty statements about "la Republique" and "la France". She is flying to America for high-profile, and no doubt heavily photographed, appointments. Her website is now online, her logo — an oak — launched, her email address posted prominently and her personal support team up and running. Though she continues to deny it, everybody knows Michele Alliot-Marie, France's 60-year-old Defence Minister, is running for President.

"It's not if, it's when. And frankly all these smokescreens are just pathetic," an aide to one disgruntled political rival grumbled last week. For, the candidacy of Ms. Alliot-Marie is raising hackles across the political spectrum — not least because it brings with it the intriguing possibility that the presidential election campaign in the spring could see two women battling for the supreme office in French politics.

Male rivals

Next month, the French Socialist party is likely to choose Segolene Royal (53), President of the Poitou-Charentes region, as its candidate over two male rivals. Ms. Royal, whose moderate stance has angered many more militant French socialists, is expected to try to unite the disparate elements of the French Left to win over an irritable, worried and unpredictable electorate. The 2007 election could thus see one woman candidate representing the Centre-Left, another the Centre-Right.

Ms. Alliot-Marie has admitted the gender of her most likely rival is a key element in her decision to stand. "Lots of activists have told me I am the only person who can beat Royal," she told Le Figaro newspaper last week. Deliberately echoing General de Gaulle, she called the election of a President "an encounter between the French people and a man... or a woman."

Promoting the idea of a direct dialogue between an individual and the electorate, especially with the implicit reference to the founder of the Fifth Republic, is also a clever tactic, as it will allow her to "bypass" official party structures dominated by Nicholas Sarkozy, the populist and authoritarian Interior Minister. "The question for Alliot-Marie, and any other prospective candidate, is how to escape from Sarkozy's incredible, overwhelming dominance of the French Right," said biographer and political journalist Michael Darmon.

Irritation

Mr. Sarkozy has made little secret of his irritation at Ms. Alliot-Marie's ambition, accusing her of spreading dissent. His loyalists poured scorn on her in a carefully orchestrated counter-offensive.

Though far from a committed feminist herself, Ms. Alliot-Marie is an experienced political operator who, in a 25-year political career, has shown formidable tenacity in the face of deep-rooted sexism. In 1999, she became the first woman in France to lead a political party when she took over Mr. Chirac's UMP for three years.

Trained as a lawyer, divorced, she has earned the respect of France's senior soldiers in four years as their political chief and, apart from making an expensive mess of the decommissioning of an asbestos-ridden aircraft carrier, has avoided public scandal.

Earlier this year, Forbes, the American business magazine, named her the 57th most powerful woman in the world. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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