Posted on 01/19/2007 12:11:13 PM PST by Dark Skies
French presidential candidate Segolene Royal's political honeymoon is slowly coming to an end. The campaign of the Socialist Party candidate - who for months had captivated the French with her elegance and self-possession - has been beset by a series of gaffes and internal quarrels, just as the campaign of her conservative rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, is gathering pace.
The latest incident involved Royal's notoriously outspoken spokesman, Arnaud Montebourg, who was suspended from the campaign for one month after an unfortunate verbal lapse.
Appearing on a popular talk show on the cable channel Canal Plus, Montebourg said, "Segolene Royal has only one flaw, her partner."
He quickly added, "This was a joke," but the damage had been done, for Royal's partner, and the father of her four children, is the head of the Socialist Party, Francois Hollande.
The comment came only a few days after Royal and Hollande had publicly disagreed on taxation, a vital election issue.
Hollande had said that if the Socialists emerge victorious from this year's elections, they will annul a tax decrease on households earning more than 4,000 euros (5,200 dollars) per month which the conservative government had enacted.
"That's not how I see things," Royal commented, and added that her companion had not consulted her before making his declaration.
In addition, disagreements over Royal's campaign style were made public when a participant at a Socialist Party campaign meeting allowed journalists from the daily Le Monde to listen to the proceedings via his cellphone.
"We must hold the course," Royal said at the meeting in response to criticism of her campaign of participative democracy, in which she has consulted with voters around the country but avoided making strong policy statements. "There are perhaps things that are hard to see, less expensive, but this is what will give us credibility."
And supporters of the men she defeated in the Socialist Party presidential primary, former prime minister Laurent Fabius and former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused Royal of "ostracizing" the two longtime Socialist stalwarts from the campaign.
"If she wants to rally the French people, she must first rally the Socialists," grumbled one Fabius supporter.
According to Socialist deputy Vincent Peillon, a strong Royal supporter, these disagreements reflect "the quarrel between the old and modern" segments of the party.
The candidate herself admitted Thursday that her campaign was going through "a stage of tension." However, she said that this was "normal" since her participative democracy "is quite simply a change in political method."
Unfortunately for Royal, the quarrels came just as Sarkozy was overwhelmingly nominated by the conservative UMP party to stand for the presidency, receiving 98.1 per cent of the vote in the party primary, where he ran unopposed.
Sarkozy's nomination put his image on the front page of virtually every news publication, and marked the official start of an aggressive UMP campaign, including a high-profile dirty trick.
Royal charged that UMP deputy Jacques Godfrain, a close Sarkozy advisor, was behind untrue assertions disseminated on the internet and published in at least one newspaper that she had illegally avoided paying property taxes.
"Election campaign methods like this are unacceptable. These are the methods of - what do they say - scum," Royal fumed, cleverly using the same term that Sarkozy had applied to the minority youths who rioted in French ghettoes in November 2005.
Nevertheless, polls now show her trailing Sarkozy for the first time, by 52 to 48 per cent in a head-to-head meeting that is almost certain to take place in the second round of elections, on May 6.
But Royal must know that the French vote more conservatively in elections than they do in polls. This is why right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen generally does better at the ballot box than in surveys.
Her biggest problem may well be that voters who were initially seduced by her being a woman will decide at the last moment that they, and France, are not quite ready yet for a female president.
The european fellow I spoke with said Sarkozy had zero chance. There will be much lamentation if this guy gets elected. lamenting and burning renaults that is. And that's okay because it's better to bang a drum and draw out a tiger than let him stay in his most comfortable hiding spot to pick you off at will.
"Appearing on a popular talk show on the cable channel Canal Plus, Montebourg said, 'Segolene Royal has only one flaw, her partner.' He quickly added, 'This was a joke,'"
Hehe. Another botched joke.
>> You are soooooo NOT progressive.
LOL! You are soooooo correct!
Bet him 10 Euros against his 10,000 Euros. According to him the 10 Euros will be a sure thing.
Whatever "european fellow" told you that is full of it. The Socialist candidate last time didn't even make the final round - Le Pen did. I like Sarkozy's chances, and he's as much "our kind of guy" as any Frenchman could realistically be and have a good chance.
He's probably still as liberal as Clinton by our standards, but he's got to be better than Chirac.
Placing any bets?
Steyn had a column a while back that Sarkozy travelled to Canada to see the guy that employed 2 of the last 3 PMs. I don't know if Harper ever worked for the guy.
Originally I thought Royal would win, but it would be close.
I still think "la vote vaginale" will be just the margin to pull Royal over the top, but it will be closer than ever.
Every single act or thing that could happen short of a terrorist disaster cuts so evenly both ways that it's just hard to say.
A real terrorist disaster, even, might cut both ways.
On the one hand, the right goes farther right and divides itself between Le Pen and Sarkozy. But on the other hand, Sarkozy has a reputation for being hard on crime and Arabs, so that pulls towards him. Flipping a hand over, we have Royal then appealing more than ever to the Arab vote.
Underlying all of this we have to remember something else: the French economy is doing quite well, and unemployment is down. The 35 hours are both locked in stone and protected by labor power, but also snickered at ("Alors, pourquoi pas 18 heures? Pourquoi pas 12?"). There will be a lot of assessment going on.
En revanche, there's the female vote...
I personally believe this election will be decided in Guadeloupe, Martinique and la Reunion.
The recent discovery that she and her "partner" are rich as mud, own three houses, and pay virtually no taxes certainly hasn't helped.
Gauche caviare at its worst, as the Froggies say.
Segolene Royal -- Photo: AP
"Faced with taunts about being a "gauche caviar" — the Gallic equivalent of a champagne socialist — she denied being rich, instead claiming that she was just 'well off'. Not only does she partly own three impressive homes with her boyfriend, Francois Hollande, the Socialist Party chairman, but the couple have set up a real estate company to manage the properties. This has enabled them to reduce the amount they pay in l'impot de solidarite sur la fortune (ISF), a notoriously high tax imposed on anyone with assets of more than $A1.25 million."
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