Socialists seek new leader to end feuding and challenge Sarkozy

Socialists seek new leader to end feuding and challenge Sarkozy

* Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
* guardian.co.uk, Friday November 7 2008 00.01 GMT
* The Guardian, Friday November 7 2008


The French Socialist party last night took the first step in its labyrinthine process to choose a new leader charismatic enough to reinvent the French left and provide a viable opposition to Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Socialists, who have spent much of the past few months stabbing each other in the back, last night voted on six motions to reinvigorate the party put forward on behalf of candidates.

Three motions are expected to emerge as favourites, allowing the party to draw up a shortlist for the leadership vote on November 20, when François Hollande steps down after 11 years in the job. The main candidates are the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë; the former presidential candidate Ségolène Royal - who is Hollande's former partner; and the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry.

Delanoë is the favourite in the polls. If he takes over the party, he will be well-placed to run for election as France's first gay president in 2012. He is lauded for green initiatives such as Paris's bike hire scheme, and for cultural projects such as importing sand to transform the bank of the River Seine in Paris into a summer "beach".

But critics within the party say he is a traditionalist who is as grey as his trademark suits. Delanoë, who represents the classic social democrat wing of the party, says it needs an "authoritative" leader, and has travelled the country on four hours' sleep a night to extend his support base beyond Paris.

When he launched his campaign he unashamedly called himself a liberal - a dreaded word on the French left - and he has since been at pains to explain that he is only politically liberal and not an advocate of unfettered capitalism.

Royal, who recently held a rock and rap gig in Paris, has accused Delanoë of standing for "immobilism" and says the social democrat model is outdated.

Where she once stood strong on rightwing issues such as security and the French flag, she has used the financial crisis to shift left, suggesting that any French business in profit be prevented from laying off staff and advising that leaders of failing banks be barred from ever working again in finance.

Aubry, the daughter of former European commission president Jacques Delors, is a former social affairs minister who introduced France's 35-hour week and has united various party factions behind her left-leaning project.

Some suggest she could be a convenient interim party leader who would make way for a popular figure such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is currently managing director of the International Monetary Fund, to run as a Socialist presidential candidate in 2012. The party will hold a congress in Reims on November 14 before voting for a new leader the following week.

Meanwhile, President Sarkozy has seen his approval ratings jump over the past month on the back of his handling of the economic crisis, an opinion poll published yesterday said.

The survey for Le Parisien said 47% of people had confidence in Sarkozy's ability to tackle the main problems facing France, up from 40% the month before.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/07/france-nicolas-sarkozy