If it can avoid infighting, the Socialist Party may be set for the Elysée, writes Ruadhán Mac Cormaicin Paris
AS THOUSANDS of Socialist Party (PS) members rose to their feet in La Rochelle on Sunday night to applaud Martine Aubry’s rousing speech to their annual summer school, they must have marvelled at their party’s new-found sense of purpose.
This time last year, the PS was struggling to regroup after a European election defeat so heavy – the green coalition Europe Écologie almost pushed it into third place – that it led some on the left to predict that the party was in inexorable decline.
Aubry’s leadership – which she won narrowly and acrimoniously in 2008 – came under renewed attack, senior figures seemed consumed by internecine fights, and all the while President Nicolas Sarkozy strode on unchallenged. “Dead” is how the celebrity philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy succinctly characterised the PS just 18 months ago.
Some corpse. Today, the PS looks to have turned itself into a serious political force once again, and although some of its underlying problems may not have gone away, the party is working hard at conveying a sense that old quarrels have given way to a spirit of unity.
A resounding victory in regional elections in March, where the left took control of all but one mainland French department, has galvanised supporters and strengthened Aubry’s position.
What were once seen as weaknesses – her quiet solidity, her consensual instinct, her lack of charisma – are now cited to contrast her positively with the showy, unpredictable, mercurial Sarkozy. With the president’s approval ratings running close to 30 per cent, recent polls suggest at least two PS figures could defeat him in the 2012 presidential election.
In her 90-minute address to supporters, Aubry vowed the PS would present a “credible alternative” to Sarkozy in 2012. “This is not a presidency – it’s an ordeal,” she said. “We will be ready for 2012 and we will not disappoint.”
The themes of crime and security, pushed by the government all summer, are a problem for the left – some figures in the ruling UMP party are said to believe that every time the government raises them, the PS loses a few votes – but Aubry’s serious, forceful speech denouncing Sarkozy’s “odious” tactics succeeded at least in winning back the initiative and pushing the UMP further on to the defensive.
If the PS is to stand a chance of sending its candidate to the Elysée Palace for the first time since François Mitterrand won a second term in 1988, however, it has to reckon with three major challenges.
First, that “credible alternative” has to take shape in policy. The party’s latest thinking on schools, crime and foreign affairs is due to be revealed over the coming months, but looming rows over the budget and pensions will test internal cohesion in a party whose senior figures represent clearly divergent currents of the left.
The tension reaches all the way to the top: when the pensions debate began earlier this year, Aubry first said she was open to raising the retirement age from 60 before declaring she was firmly against the idea just weeks later.
Second, the PS faces tough decisions over whether to forge alliances with parties to its left. The split in the left-wing vote has been the bane of PS presidential candidates for years, but if the party is to govern with Europe Écologie, for example, how are their policies on the economy and nuclear power to be reconciled? And how receptive would the PS be to support from the Communists?
Finally, there’s the most vexed question of all: the name in the pink column on the ballot paper. At La Rochelle in recent days, the dominant figure was one who wasn’t there at all. All eyes are on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and long-time socialist heavyweight, whose post in Washington precludes him from getting involved in French politics but who has emerged in opinion polls as the man most likely to defeat Sarkozy in a run-off in 2012. At present there are six other socialists known to be considering running, including Ségolène Royal, the defeated candidate in 2007. But a great deal hinges on Strauss-Kahn’s intentions, and until now – to his supporters’ exasperation – he has given little hint as to whether he will stand down early from the IMF post to return to the fray in Paris.
Whatever the former finance minister decides, the long run-in to next year’s primary risks reviving the factionalism the PS has recently made a good job of concealing. It’s widely believed that the two front-runners, Aubry and Strauss-Kahn, have agreed between them not to run against each other for the nomination but to make way for whoever is the better-placed to win the 2012 election.
But how to divine who is better-placed? A poll by TNS-Sofres last week showed that both Strauss-Kahn and Aubry would defeat Sarkozy in a run-off, although it suggested that Strauss-Kahn’s margin of victory would be overwhelming and Aubry’s slight.
But if the socialists are spooked by the prospect of a repeat of the 2002 election, when a badly split left-wing vote meant Lionel Jospin missed out on the final run-off, then a candidate who can secure the bulk of the left-wing vote may be appealing, and it’s no secret that “DSK” is more popular in the population at large than he is on the left.
It may not be long before that newly fashioned unity is put to the test.