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Battle royal ahead in France

Vaiju Naravane

Segolene Royal is the first woman to be a serious presidential contender.

SEGOLENE ROYAL, the 53-year-old leader of France's western Poitou-Charentes region created history on Thursday, winning over 60 per cent of the votes in an internal Socialist Party (PS) poll, to wrest her party's nomination for next April's presidential election. She is now the first woman in France to emerge as a serious contender for the highest office in the land.

Telegenic, intelligent, and articulate, Ms. Royal, a mother of four, who has successfully juggled politics and family life, trounced her two male rivals, the former Prime Minister, Laurent Fabius, and the former Industry and Finance Minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who received 18 per cent and 20 per cent of the vote.

In her last campaign speech tinged with acrimony, she accused the two men of displaying male chauvinistic attitudes, a charge both denied. But their somewhat under-the-belt sallies (Mr. Fabius had reacted to her presidential bid by asking: "Who's going to look after the children?" while Mr. Strauss-Kahn had commented on one of her TV performances with the words: "She would have done better to stay at home rather than read from her kitchen recipes,") did not appear to cut any ice with her voters. Commentators remarked that French society had moved on from the time when sexist remarks (as with Edith Cresson when she became France's first woman Prime Minister in the 1980s) were tolerated and even approved.

This is the first time the Socialist Party has held American-style primaries to choose its nominee. The three candidates participated in televised debates and between them addressed over a hundred political meetings. The result was a plebiscite for her direct, "close-to-the-people" style of campaigning that placed the emphasis on participatory democracy and cut the intellectual cant spouted by many of her colleagues. Her speeches were sprinkled by examples of "best practice" when describing what she would do to concretely resolve problems such as criminality or unemployment.

`Determination of steel'

Combining good looks, an almost magical ability to touch people, and a willingness to take political risks by voicing unorthodox ideas, she struck a clear chord in a land where politics is held in poor esteem. "Audacity, a determination of steel, a sense of timing, and a feel for the issues which people care about," were the hallmarks of her campaign, said veteran political commentator Alain Duhamel. At the start of the year, Mr. Duhamel had dismissed her as a lightweight.

After the results were announced, a radiant Ms. Royal said she was experiencing a moment of "intense happiness" that she intended to savour. "Together we are going to build something extraordinary. France is going to write a new page of its history. The country wants change. I want to embody that change," she said.

For someone who has deliberately chosen to present herself as an outsider, the irony is that Ms. Royal is a pure product of France's elite politico-administrative system. Born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1953, she is one of eight children of a military officer who was a strict authoritarian. Friends say her steely determination owes much to her childhood fight for independence from his control.

After university she entered the elite National Administration School (ENA), where she was a classmate of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin as well as Francois Hollande, the PS first secretary who is also her partner and father of her four children.

Ms. Royal entered Parliament in 1988 after acting as an adviser to President Francois Mitterrand. She was Environment Minister for less than a year in 1992, and later held junior posts in education and social affairs, where she won a name as a tough defender of the family (and brought in paternity leave). Her biggest success was in the regional elections of April 2004, when she wrested control of the western region of Poitou-Charentes from Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. After that she was designated by the media as a "woman to watch."

By massively supporting Ms. Royal, the Socialist rank and file appears to have opted for a definite shift to the Right. Ms. Royal has expressed her admiration for Mr. Blair's form of social democracy, advocating family values, self-help incentives for the marginalised and underprivileged instead of outright state assistance and a crackdown on crime. She is considered by many to be the only Left-wing candidate who could successfully take on Nicolas Sarkozy, the hard-line Interior Minister.

Ms. Royal's nomination could lead to further calls for a shake-up within the conservatives. The 51-year-old Mr. Sarkozy, who is also president of the ruling UMP, is actively disliked by President Chirac and his close associates that include Mr. de Villepin and Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie. Calls for a Socialist-style primary are on the rise and Ms. Alliot-Marie is quite likely to throw her hat into the ring in an attempt to engineer an all-woman duel. Indeed, Mr. Chirac kept up the suspense about his own possible candidature by saying he would decide in January, just three months before the April 22 vote.

Tough for Sarkozy

Winning against Ms. Royal will not be a cakewalk for Mr. Sarkozy. The French Right is split with the vote divided between the ruling UMP, the Centrist UDF, and several parties of the extreme Right such as Jean Marie-Le Pen's National front and Philippe de Villiers' MPF or Movement pour la France. In the last presidential election of 2002, Mr. Chirac won barely 19 per cent of the popular vote with Mr. Le Pen coming in second to oust the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin. A strong showing by the extreme Right cannot be ruled out this time.

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