Ségolène Royal

We mention Ségolène Royal because it is worth considering how she has become, for the moment, the French left’s best option. We cannot say the socialists’ best option because a large part of the party’s apparatus and all of its most influential members are against her. And this may very well dash her chances. But for the moment there are people of the left and many of the centre, and perhaps some from the right as well, who like her ideas. Because she is not as intransigent as the old school politicians in her party are, because she connects with the people, her discourse is more optimistic and more sincere, and she bases her ideas on values and attitudes that are more positive.

So what makes Ségolène Royal different? Like the others, she speaks of the welfare state, of how we must continue building the European Union. She also speaks about the young, immigration, the environment, etc. These are all key issues. What differentiates her from the traditional views held by a large section of the French left and by so-called progressives in general? What differentiates her is the importance she gives to issues such as education, the sense of individual and collective responsibility, the transmission of values, work and the virtue of effort, the family of father, mother and offspring. She makes this plain on her website, which, incidentally, has an appealing name: www.desirsdavenir.org. Future Desires. What differentiates her also is her courage to challenge her stagnant party’s official doctrine and especially its idiosyncrasies. Or when she says that if France is to conserve its strong welfare state it will have to undertake reforms, some of which will be unpopular. Or when see agrees with many of the economic and social policies defended by Tony Blair and Giddens.

All this has added merit when it comes from a potential presidential candidate.

It is by voicing out loud these opinions that she has won the support of public opinion – a broad spectrum of public opinion. Let’s see what will happen at the PSF Congress when the entire party apparatus mobilises and the ambitions of a multitude of candidates become evident. When, as has begun to happen, even the feminists of her party rebel against her. However, for the moment, when the solution lies with the people and not the machinery, her message – of not towing the line that goes by the name of progressivism – is one that reaches the people more than any other message. As much, if not more, as that of Sarkozy himself.