French Socialists riven by feuding as Royal tries to seize control of party

The Times ^ | 8/31/2007 | Charles Bremner

[bruinbirdman]

A bitter feud between Ségolène Royal and her former partner, the Socialist Party leader, François Hollande, is dominating the party’s summer congress.

Ms Royal delivers the keynote
speech at the La Rochelle
gathering, but senior
Socialists stayed away in
disgust as the former first
couple of the party fought their
turf war

The acrimony came to a head when Mr Hollande said that he planned to fight the mother of his four children for the party’s next presidential candidacy after her failed bid in May.

Ms Royal, whose 25-year domestic partnership with Mr Hollande came ended after her defeat by Nicolas Sarkozy, has made it clear that she wants to wrest control of the party from Mr Hollande.

As the former first couple fought their turf war, many senior Soclialists stayed away in disgust from the gathering at the Atlantic port of La Rochelle.

Ms Royal opened the three-day gathering today under brutal fire for her defeat as presidential candidate.“I am here to help my party change and become attractive again. I want the return of imagination,” she said.

The woman who was the darling of her party, and of France, this time last year, holds no post in the leadership but wants to take over the party after Mr Hollande steps down in 12 months. She opened the conference in her role as President of the Poitou-Charentes region, which includes La Rochelle.

Younger rivals were surprised yesterday when Mr Hollande, 53 — who is seen as a spent force after a decade of leadership — announced plans to seek the party’s presidential nomination in 2010.

The prospect of the party being held hostage to the Royal-Hollande feud appalled senior Socialists, many of whom blame both for the party’s fall to its lowest ebb since the late François Mitterrand took it over in the mid-1970s. “A plague on both their houses, the sooner we get rid of both the better,” said a delegate at La Rochelle today.

Several party barons, including Laurent Fabius, a former Prime Minister, stayed away from the conference, apparently to avoid being dragged into likely bloodletting over the weekend as 3,000 party officials draw lessons from the defeat.

The sharpest attack on the ex-couple came from Claude Allègre, the last Socialist Education Minister. He called Mr Hollande a scheming operator. “His nice-guy exterior, full of humour, hides an unrestrained lying, arriviste side,” he said. Ms Royal was “egotistical, impatient, unconstant, incompetent, only interested in one thing — herself”, he added.

The former party baron also said openly what many say in private: that the Socialist party has no match for Mr Sarkozy. The President has shattered the party’s morale by recruiting half a dozen of its most admired figures to his Government. He has also neutralised Dominique Strauss-Kahn, its most plausible potential leader, by winning European backing for him to head the International Monetary Fund from next month.

Ms Royal retains the sympathy of many rank-and-file Socialists but senior figures in the party view her quirky, highly personal, campaign as a disaster and want to rebuild France’s left-wing opposition without her.

Leading Socialists, including Mr Allègre, have attacked her in four books this month. Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, a former Socialist Cabinet minister, who has published Au Revoir Madame Royal, said: “Royal got everything wrong, right down the line. She played and still plays a purely personal game. She has not drawn any lesson from her defeat.”

In an article this week, Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris and a likely contender for the leadership, subjected Ms Royal to a blistering attack as all surface and no substance and he likened the recent history of the party to a soap opera.

Beyond the score-settling, the Socialists are aware that their party risks consignment to the wilderness unless it adapts its decades-old left-wing doctrines to the modern world. Mr Sarkozy robbed the party of the votes of its its traditional working-class base with his tough talk and promises to revive France. He then won favour with the immigrant community by appointing three ministers of Arab and African origin — something that no Socialist Government has done.

A group of MPs in their thirties and forties are struggling to dislodge the so-called elephants who have run the party since the 1980s, but there is no consensus on how to update their dogmas while retaining the anti-capitalist spirit that is still backed by its core voters.

The party remains strong locally and believes that it will be able to turn the tide by taking big cities in municipal elections next spring. Mr Delanoë is likely to emerge as the party’s most powerful figure if, as expected, he wins resounding re-election as Paris Mayor.

[Lancey Howard]

The acrimony came to a head when Mr Hollande said that he planned to fight the mother of his four children for the party’s next presidential candidacy after her failed bid in May.... Ms Royal, whose 25-year domestic partnership with Mr Hollande came ended after her defeat by Nicolas Sarkozy, has made it clear that she wants to wrest control of the party from Mr Hollande.

Socialists have so much integrity.....

[D-fendr]

“A plague on both their houses, the sooner we get rid of both the better,”

You know it's bad when the French start quoting Shakespeare.

[bruinbirdman]

Four bastard kids is indicative of the character of both of them.

yitbos

[x_plus_one]

She played and still plays a purely personal game. She has not drawn any lesson from her defeat.

Sounds like PIAPS.

[bruinbirdman]

Had to look that one up.

yitbos

[JohnBovenmyer]

Hillary in two years? One can dream.

[3AngelaD]

And you know it’s bad when one Socialist calls another Socialist an “arriviste.” Très drôle.

[JSDude1]

Why don’t they just call them “married” or going through divorce or some such, not “domest partnership”- in America their 25 year relationship would be called ‘common-law marriage’..

[BenLurkin]

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