Text 28669, 105 rader
Skriven 2007-05-07 05:25:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Left
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Just like the left here.  They have to find someone to blame.  


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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/bf138202-fbf2-11db-93a4-000b5df10621.html

Defeated Socialists search for scapegoats
By Martin Arnold in Paris 

Published: May 6 2007 19:23 | Last updated: May 6 2007 19:23

Let the finger-pointing begin. Ségolène Royal’s defeat on Sunday night 
left the French Socialist party in disarray and searching for someone to 
blame. There is hardly a shortage of scapegoats.

It is the party’s third consecutive presidential defeat. The Socialists 
now face the question of whether they can ever regain power without 
ditching their anti-capitalist rhetoric, as the mainstream left has done 
across almost all of Europe. 

Ms Royal can argue that she did better than Lionel Jospin, who in 2002 
led the Socialists to a humiliating third place behind Jacques Chirac 
and far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. But France’s main opposition 
party still faces a wrenching crisis. 

öThe left is not credible on so many issues, from the 35-hour working 
week to immigration and law and order,ö says Dominique Reynié, professor 
at Sciences Po university. 

“It is the fault of the left collectively. Ever since their 
[parliamentary election] defeat in 1983 they have never questioned their 
fundamental ideology, only thinking they needed to change tactics,ö he 
says.

In many ways, Ms Royal, the Senegal-born daughter of an army colonel, 
seemed to be the tactical masterstroke that could restore the Socialist 
party to winning ways. 

Young and moderate voters were drawn by her Blairist ideas and taste for 
smashing party taboos on the 35-hour week and young offenders. By 
embracing the internet to invent a new participative style of 
campaigning, the glamorous 53-year-old seemed to be breaking the 
political mould, becoming the first woman with a shot at the Elysée 
palace.

But Ms Royal failed to capitalise on the buzz around her euphoric 
victory in November’s Socialist primary, when she was seen as the 
“gazelleö beating more experienced “elephantsö for the presidential 
nomination. The fierce primary battle, however, left the “elephantsö 
feeling jealous and reluctant to rally behind her.

In the months that followed she lost momentum, committing several 
gaffes, notably on foreign and economic policy, which sowed the seeds of 
doubt about her “presidential statureö.

Her campaign was shambolic. There were many last-minute agenda changes 
and she often arrived late. Socialist staff moaned about her 
personalised leadership style. An opinion poll found that 63 per cent of 
voters thought her campaign was poor. 

She never seemed able to escape from her party’s rigid ideological 
barriers. Every time she tried, for instance by suggesting military 
camps for young offenders, it provoked a volley of criticism from the 
party apparat.

Moderates attracted to her early campaign were disappointed by her 
manifesto, filled with generous spending pledges and little indication 
of how to fund them. 

Party disunity exploded into public view when Eric Besson, her economic 
adviser, quit saying she was “dangerous for Franceö and joined the 
Sarkozy campaign. 

François Bayrou, the centrist who came third in the first round, cited 
her economic policies as his reason for not endorsing Ms Royal. “Her 
manifesto, multiplying the interventions of the state, perpetuating the 
illusion that the state must take care of everything… runs in the 
opposite direction to the orientation needed,ö he said.

The awkward role of François Hollande, her party leader and father of 
her four children, seemed to backfire. He claimed she would raise taxes 
– forcing her to deny it – and she suspended a spokesman for saying Mr 
Hollande was “her only flawö.

Ms Royal has always kept her distance from her party. She will remain 
head of the Poitou-Charentes region and many expect her to retreat to 
her rural base in western France to wait for the party battles to calm 
as she mulls a 2012 presidential bid.

Commentators predict the party could now be torn in two, along the lines 
of the split in the 2005 European referendum, when a large minority 
rebelled against the official party line and campaigned for a No vote. 

öHer defeat will be extremely damaging for the left. Huge divisions will 
start to emerge at 8pm on Sunday,ö says Eric Dupin, author of A Droite 
Toute, a book on the rightward shift of French voters.

Jean-Marie Colombani, director of Le Monde newspaper, says: 
“Globalisation is still considered a threat and diabolised as the root 
of all evil. The left must get out of the ideological impasse in which 
it has been trapped for too long.ö

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