Segolene Royal: A Biography

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Ségolène Royal

Robert Harneis is a journalist with the English language newspaper French News. Alongside this biography of Ségolène Royal he is also the translator and editor of Testimony – the English language translation of Témoignage – the UK edition of the bestselling book by Nicolas Sarkozy. Robert Harneis lives and works in Alsace with his French wife.

This book is the story of a tough, clever girl from a village in Lorraine who grew up in the traditional world of a French Catholic family with a proud military and bourgeois heritage. It tells how she turned away from that and became the Socialist candidate and the first woman to represent a major party in the French Presidential election. To put Ségolène’s political career in context, there are two unique features that are particularly worth noting.

The first oddity of the current French political scene is that normally the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party is its leader, the Secretary-General; but in this case the leader happens to be Ségolène’s lifetime companion and father of her four children, François Hollande. The result of the adoption of Ségolène as candidate is that, bizarrely, the Socialist Party is run by what is effectively a husband and wife team. The comparison with the Clintons is obvious. François and Ségolène have leap-frogged each other up the Socialist political ladder from the day they met, and they now share the top table.

Ségolène Royal

Robert Harneis

The other unusual circumstance is that the last twenty-five years has witnessed only two Presidents of France, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, yet this superficial stability conceals great instability in government. In the same twentyfive year period there have been eleven Prime Ministers.

Harriman House is one of the UK’s leading independent publishers of books on finance, business, economic and politics. Our catalogue covers a wide range of subjects from personal finance, small business and lifestyle, through to stock market investing, trading, and professional guides. For details of all of our titles go to: www.harriman-house.com.

This is the turbulent political background to Ségolène Royal’s rise to the top in French politics. A background in which reputations are made and broken overnight and to which her acute political antennae and her courage are particularly well suited.

Robert Harneis

Harriman House

To complicate things further the French electorate have been consulted in two important referenda during this period. Both were about Europe, and as in Britain, the European Union does not bring peace and tranquillity to domestic politics.

Ségolène Royal is France's first key female politician. This book puts her in the context of the France she grew up in and the France in which she now operates as a politician. It covers: • her early life

• her start in politics

• her career as a deputy and a minister

• her relationship with François Mitterrand

• her defeat of her more famous rivals in a male orientated party for the right to be the candidate • the beginning of the campaign.

The book also includes appendices covering details of the main political institutions in France, a full bibliography and filmography and the full translated transcript of her Presidential Pact.

Ségolène Royal A biography Robert Harneis

www.harriman-house.com/royal Photograph by Jean-Luc Luyssen / Gamma / Hachette Photos Presse, Camera Press London

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9781905641307 Harriman House Publishing

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£16.99

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Ségolène Royal A biography by Robert Harneis

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HARRIMAN HOUSE LTD 3A Penns Road Petersfield Hampshire GU32 2EW

Tel: +44 (0)1730 233870 Fax: +44 (0)1730 233880

First published in Great Britain in 2007, Copyright © Harriman House Ltd. The right of Robert Harneis to be identified as Author has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 ISBN: 1-9056-4130-3 ISBN 13: 978-19056413-07 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library. All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publisher. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without the prior written consent of the Publisher. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Kings Lynn, Norfolk

No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person or corporate body acting or refraining to act as a result of reading material in this book can be accepted by the Publisher or by the Author.

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Dedication This book is dedicated to my French wife without whose help this book could not have been written and who put up with some very odd hours before it was finished. Her contempt for politics is matched only by her shrewd assessments of French politicians.

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Acknowledgements I should like to thank all my French friends who, over the years, have helped me to understand France’s intricate politics. My particular thanks are due to Mike Edwards for finding me a copy of Ségolène’s book La Vérité d’Une Femme when noone else could; the very patient Marcel Gay, grand rapporteur with the Est Républicain, one of only two regional French newspapers to have its own national and international staff, who is always ready to answer questions; to François Moulin, the author of Ségolène Royal: Un Destin Français, who generously gave me unlimited access to his great knowledge of the Royal family, and finally to my friends and colleagues at French News.

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Contents Introduction

1

1.

Early Years

5

3.

First Elections

2. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

Mitterrand’s Apprentice

35

Environment Minister

75

First Defeats and Opposition

II.

83

A Disappointing Victory: Education and the Family 95

Defeat into Victory: President of the Poitou-Charente Region The Gazelle and the Elephants

The Presidential Election Campaign

Appendices I.

45

Chronology

The Institutions of France

III. The Presidential Pact

IV. Bibliography & Filmography Index

113

127 153 169 175 179 205 207

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Introduction This book is the story of a tough, clever girl from a village in Lorraine who grew up in the traditional world of a French Catholic family with a proud military and bourgeois heritage. It tells how she turned away from that and became the Socialist candidate and the first woman to represent a major party in the French Presidential election.

The reader might legitimately ask how an Englishman could feel justified in writing a book about Ségolène Royal. Forty years ago, I married into a French family not very different from that of Ségolène Royal. Thus Ségolène’s background is very much my background by adoption. It was a formal world of rigid social attitudes and a ferocious work ethic, but with its Ségolène-like rebels. In the office it was still ‘Monsieur’, ‘Madame’ or ‘Mademoiselle’, when in Britain Christian names had already taken over. One of the first things that I learnt was that republican France was a great deal more conservative than monarchical Britain.

As a naïve young Englishman, who was cautiously welcomed into a French family, I was unprepared for the complexity of French political life and the range of views a single family could encompass. The colourful lives they had led fascinated me.

There were parents-in-law who risked their lives to hide Jews from the Nazis and thought nothing of it, and grandparentsin-law who did not like Jews at all. There were communists, Gaullists and Petainists. There was an uncle who never gave up the fight against the German invaders, escaped to Britain and served in the British Army – refusing to join the Free French. There was another who served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the last French fleet ever to set sail to attack the British navy, after the attack on the French fleet at Mers el Kebir in 1940. Fortunately they changed their minds. There was the grandmother who had been a governess in Czarist Russia. There was the father-in-law who tended the British wounded in the crypt of the great church in Calais, whilst

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Brigadier Nicolson’s garrison sacrificed itself to keep the Germans away from Dunkirk; the mother-in-law who was discovered hiding a revolver under her mattress – a death penalty offence – and convinced her German interrogator that a young girl could not be expected to sleep unarmed with all these strange (German) men about. There was the distant relative, a surgeon, who on hearing the news of François Mitterrand’s electoral victory in 1981 went out into his beautiful garden and ripped out every rose bush and burnt it because it was the Socialist Party symbol. They were tough, courageous, sometimes hilarious and never boring. So telling this story has to some extent been a sentimental journey. To rummage in the life of Ségolène Royal has been to revisit the ghosts of the past. That shared past has made it easier to understand her background. The world that she turned away from, I knew as well as most French writers and perhaps better than some. Equally, my adult life has coincided with the unfolding of the history and politics of the French Fifth Republic. I was in Paris as a schoolboy when the Fourth Republic collapsed and General de Gaulle returned to power in 1958 to found the Fifth. I was there again when the OAS1 nearly killed him at Petit Clamart. My young French wife and I watched stunned in 1968 as the students of the Latin Quarter shook the foundations of the new republic that de Gaulle had so carefully constructed. I watched in 1974 and 1981 as François Mitterrand and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing disputed the presidency on television. I have followed the career of Jacques Chirac with all its twists and turns from beginning to end. Unravelling Ségolène’s political life has been to revisit my own journey through French politics.

1 The OAS – L’Organisation Armée Secrete – an extremist organisation that believed that France should not have given Algeria independence. They tried to assassinate General de Gaulle on a number of occasions. The attempt at Petit Clamart, when the General’s car was ambushed and machine-gunned, was the nearest they came to success. Bullets passed between him and his wife. He was saved by the coolness of his chauffeur who drove through the ambush after the car’s tyres were shot out.

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Introduction

To put Ségolène’s political career in context, there are two unique features that are particularly worth noting.

The first oddity of the current French political scene is that normally the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party is its leader, the Secretary-General; but in this case the leader happens to be Ségolène’s lifetime companion and father of her four children, François Hollande. The result of the adoption of Ségolène as candidate is that, bizarrely, the Socialist Party is run by what is effectively a husband and wife team. The comparison with the Clintons is obvious. François and Ségolène have leap-frogged each other up the Socialist political ladder from the day they met, and they now share the top table.

The other unusual circumstance is that the last twenty-five years has witnessed only two Presidents of France, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, yet this superficial stability conceals great instability in government. In the same 25-year period there have been eleven Prime Ministers. Astonishingly, no French government since 1981 has succeeded in getting itself re-elected at a general election. On three occasions – the so-called periods of cohabitation – the Prime Minister has come from a different political party to the President: in 1986, when Jacques Chirac was centre-right Prime Minister to Mitterrand’s Socialist President; in 1993, when Edouard Balladur fulfilled the same role; and in 1997, when Lionel Jospin was Socialist Prime Minister to Chirac’s Gaullist President. (For those unfamiliar with the institutions of the French political system, a summary is provided on page 175.) To complicate things further the French electorate have been consulted in two important referenda during this period. Both were about Europe. The first, in 1992, asked for their authority to sign the Treaty of Maastricht. President Mitterrand scraped home with a majority in favour of 51.04%. The winning margin was less than the 800,000 spoilt or blank ballot papers. In the second, in 2005, Chirac called on the people to vote in favour of the Treaty for a European Constitution. They said

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No with a comfortable majority of 54.68%. As in Britain, the European Union does not bring peace and tranquillity to domestic politics. This is the turbulent political background to Ségolène Royal’s rise to the top in French politics. A background in which reputations are made and broken overnight and to which her acute political antennae and her courage are, as we shall see, particularly well suited.

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1. Early Years A daughter of the Vosges

Ségolène Royal’s background is remarkable by any standards, even if it was not one guaranteed to ease the career of a young woman intent on making her way on the French left in the 1980s. To understand her personality and political perspective, it is necessary to look not only at the far-from-ordinary family from which she comes but also to compare what she herself has said about her early life with what has gradually been revealed.

Ségolène Royal’s family, on both sides, comes from the Vosges, which is in Lorraine in north eastern France. Over the centuries two things – work and war – have formed the character of the people of this area. As long ago as François I in the 16th century, France decided that to be safe from invasion she had to establish her boundaries on her natural frontiers: the Pyrenees, the sea and the Alps in the south, and the Rhine in the north east. The natural frontiers in the south were achieved either without too much struggle or a long time ago. In the north east it has meant five centuries of intermittent warfare.

First there was the long drive to push the Holy Roman Empire and the Hapsburgs to the Rhine, an ambition finally, if temporarily, achieved by Napoleon and the Revolutionary armies. It was the great 17th century French General Turenne who said, “No Frenchman should sleep at home in his bed as long as one German soldier remains west of the Rhine.” The German counter-offensive came first from the Hapsburgs in 1814 and 1815, and then their German successors. In 1870, 1914 and 1939, three great wars devastated the towns of the north east. If that history is more or less forgotten elsewhere, it has left its mark on the people of the region. This is the country of Verdun, of Joan of Arc and of General de Gaulle.

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The latter chose the Cross of Lorraine as the symbol of the Free French. The great French nationalist writer Maurice Barrès, who was born and lived here, wrote, “this land is inhabited more by the dead than the living”. As a child Ségolène regularly went on pilgrimages with her family to the house of Saint Joan of Arc at Domrémy and the Basilique du Bois Chenu nearby, only 60 kilometres from her home.

The most prominent qualities of the people are stubborn determination, courage, thrift and hard work. Anyone who has lived amongst them will be tempted to use the word cantankerous as well. Theirs is a long way from the easy, sunny good nature of the south. The other less well-known symbol of Lorraine is the thistle and the motto Qui s’y frotte s’y pique – rub against me and you will get stung or, more to the point, “don’t mess with me”. Anyone who has seen Ségolène Royal challenged in debate will be reminded of that warning. She is now associated with the gentle, south-west Région of the Poitou-Charente that last knew serious warfare some five hundred years ago, but it is in Lorraine, in the Vosges, that her character was forged.

An army family

In France, the family is still important; and in the 1950s and 60s it was even more so. The dominant figure in the Royal family was Ségolène’s grandfather, General Florian Royal, who died in 1971. He was the son of a poor peasant who did not own his own land. The Royal family, like most others in France, had been on the land for centuries. He had the good fortune to be clever and a cousin agreed to foster him and pay for his education. The cousin was a Colonel and also named Florian Royal, who was unable to have children and, as was quite common in those days within large families, decided to foster a bright child of the family of his poorer cousins. The boy proved an ideal foster child for the childless Colonel and he shared his foster father’s enthusiasm for an army career.

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Early Years

Florian junior successfully took the entrance exam for the prestigious École Polytechnique. Every year students from the Polytechnique, founded by Napoleon, lead the parade on the 14th July down the Champs Elysée. He passed out 112th out of 231 entrants. In those days the Polytechnique was the most prestigious route into the army and provided almost all the officers for the technical branches. However, the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 interrupted his scholastic military education. The tough peasant’s son who had adapted so well to life amongst the military bourgeoisie of Nancy, showed that he was a fighting soldier as well. In 1915 he was twice mentioned in dispatches for showing “coolness, courage and efficiency” in action. Meanwhile his foster father was busy adding another page to the family history. When war broke out in 1914 old Colonel Florian insisted on returning to fight at the age of 69. The army refused to give him a command, so he volunteered as an ordinary soldier. He became something of a legend, being the subject of an article in the nationwide magazine L’Illustration under the title of “the oldest known Poilu2”. For a year and a half he served in the trenches and eventually finished the war in command of a depot at the age of 73.

With the end of the war, young Florian returned to finish his studies at the Polytechnique where he passed out 64th amongst the tragically reduced ranks of the 137 survivors of the 1912 entry. In 1919 the distinguished young officer married the daughter of property owners from Charmes. Florian senior was a witness at the wedding of his son shortly before his death in 1920. They had eight children of whom Ségolène’s father, Jacques, was the eldest of four boys and four girls. Amazingly, all of Jacques’ brothers were to become generals. It is interesting that another young officer, Charles de Gaulle, who had had a good war as well, was also busy allying himself by 2

Poilu - military slang for an ordinary soldier in the French army.

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marriage at this time with the provincial bourgeoisie. When placing Ségolène in the scheme of things socially in France, she is a descendant of that world where the best of the military married the best of the bourgeoisie.

Jacques was born in 1920 and, like his father, was to have his life disrupted by a World War. Following in his father’s footsteps, he passed the written exam for the École Polytechnique but was called up for the Second World War before he could get any further.

Like 1,500,000 of his comrades he was taken prisoner. However, he was one of the lucky few who were released in exchange for French workers going to Germany – no doubt the result of his father’s influence with the Vichy government. Florian Royal, who also fought in this war, had escaped captivity and was by this time a general in unoccupied France. Thus, in 1943, Jacques returned to Lorraine to recover from the hardships of captivity. He did not actively join the resistance, which might anyway have been difficult for a returned prisoner of war who would inevitably have been under surveillance. In August 1944, the Fighting French First Army landed in Provence under General Lattre de Tassigny. Jacques joined it and served to the end of the war, by which time it had crossed the Danube and was approaching Italy from the north through Austria. The war had stopped him completing his military education and was later to mean that he had to leave the army with the rank of colonel because he was blocked for promotion and was not to become a general like his brothers. It is fair to assume that it was to make him a disappointed man.

Jacques Royal stayed on in the army after the war. There was an appeal by the government to encourage the rebuilding of France’s armed forces. It is important to note that he served in the Colonial forces rather than the home-based army. The difference is similar to the separation that existed in the British army between the Indian army and the British regular army. It

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Early Years

goes some way to explain his very traditional approach to life and politics. He served in the war in Indochina, which ended with the military disaster of Dien Bien Phu and independence for Vietnam in 1954.

Before leaving for Indochina, he married Hélène Dehaye, daughter of a paint manufacturer from Nancy. Ségolène’s great-grandfather on her mother’s side had owned a successful haberdashery in Nancy. He became a manufacturer of socks and pullovers, giving the work to the poor people in the Tomblaine district of Nancy. Amongst the various properties owned by her grandparents was the house that they had built by the seaside at Villers-sur-Mer in Normandy, where Ségolène and her family were to spend their summer holidays in later years. Ségolène was born on 22nd September 1953, in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, where her father was serving in the Colonial artillery. It was one of a series of postings in his military career. She was the fourth of eight children born in nine years. Her full name is Marie-Ségolène. When Ségolène was two, in 1955, Jacques Royal brought his family back to France. The family lived in married quarters at Chalons-en-Champagne3 for five years. During three years of this time Colonel Royal served in the Algerian war in command of a company of Algerian Harki. In 1960 he was posted to the French colony of Martinique where he stayed with his family for nearly four years before returning to France in 1963, when Ségolène was 10.

Myth and reality – Ségolène’s childhood

Something of a myth has grown up about Ségolène’s unhappy, impoverished childhood, with her father very much the villain of the piece – and it is Ségolène who has cultivated it. 3 Formerly called Châlons-sur-Marne, today it is the capital of the ChampagneArdenne région.

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It is doubtful if there is any other family in France with a history like theirs – a hatful of generals, father and son fighting together at the same time in both world wars and one of them the oldest soldier serving in the trenches in 1914. The impact on a child of such a family history would have been considerable. It would also have been a considerable embarrassment to a rising figure in the French Socialist Party in the 1980s. Not only were the Royals super-military, but the Dehayes were super-bourgeois, and they were all superCatholic. Not quite the background for a youngster who wanted to succeed in the Socialist Party of François Mitterrand, a man who told his predecessor, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, that he aimed “to destroy the French bourgeoisie”. So, for Ségolène to succeed in this sort of atmosphere, she felt the need to caricature her family.

An influential article in the magazine L’Express about her childhood, published just before the vote to decide who should be the Socialist candidate for the presidential elections, implies that it was only Ségolène’s courageous intransigence that enabled her to break free from life under a domestic monster. The stubborn teenager fought the bullying father for the right to a decent education. Throughout her career, and particularly at the beginning, Ségolène has nurtured, in articles and interviews with chat show presenters, the image of an unhappy penniless childhood, a bullying, eccentric father and a docile submissive mother. Nathalie Rastoin, a top Ogilvy and Mather advertising executive in Europe, and Ségolène’s friend and personal image adviser, told the Parisien newspaper in 2006: “At one point in her life, during childhood, she had been unhappy and endured injustices. In her home it was the girls who learned to cook and the boys who went to study. But this personal history, which she overcame, gave her extraordinary resources.”

This statement is a caricature of the true picture.

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Early Years

Ségolène tells us family life for the Royal children was tough. No heating in the bedrooms. No hot water for washing. For the boys particularly, being shut in a cupboard or having their hair shaved off for misdemeanours was not uncommon. “No marks – no hair” said father. Regular attendance at church was obligatory. Corporal punishment was administered for the boys without hesitation. In such families in the 1950s and 60s there was still a strong tradition of wives obeying their husbands. It goes without saying that children obeyed their fathers – or else. In church, girls sat on one side of the altar and boys on the other. It is worth noting that, in some of the remoter parts of France, husbands and wives still today sit on different sides of the church.

Ségolène insinuates in one interview, rather pathetically, “but there was no incest, no psychological maltreatment”. Their home, she later said, was “a sad house with no garden”. She again tells us she had second-hand toys and second-hand clothes, adding, “we were always very embarrassed because we were badly dressed. That leaves a mark on a childhood, especially when you are the fourth child, you always had the clothes of your brothers and sisters. We had no money. Well hardly any…” Gloomy stuff.

In recent years she herself has eased up a bit on the attacks on her father, stressing that he meant well and was something of an “enlightened despot”. Has maturity made her more understanding of her father? Or has political calculation caused her to realise that the uncompromising values of a parent like Jacques Royal are not to be despised when many voters, including socialists, today feel that it is exactly those values that are missing? Perhaps it is a bit of both. Certainly older people know that this sort of regime was not uncommon in the France of that time. Many experienced it themselves and, as they would say, it did them little harm. They would add that, within reason, a bit of it today would do the modern generation some good. The author’s wife for example was not allowed to

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switch the television on, which was reserved for the parents to watch the news. In her family the children brought their reports home from school and were given a good smack if the results were not satisfactory. Being locked in the cellar for serious domestic crimes was not unknown. It was not so long ago that every French ironmonger sold a whip, rather like a small cat o’nine tails, for punishing naughty children; and beating with a leather belt was common.

So the sort of parental regime Ségolène describes and lived under was widespread at the time. Paul Royal considered his sister’s version of their childhood was so distorted that he felt it necessary to issue an open letter to protect their father’s reputation. His father, he says, “lacked flexibility and was tactless (but) he loved his children”. An uncle, Pierre Royal, says bluntly “in the Socialist Party to be the daughter of a Catholic officer was not well looked upon. So she ‘deliberately exaggerated’ and portrayed her father as a ‘domestic tyrant’ and ‘distant’”. In addition, it is quite clear that Ségolène’s frequent insinuations that her family was poor are nonsense. No doubt with eight children to bring up money was short, but a family that could afford to spend the summer on the Normandy coast and sometimes in the South of France was not poor.

The facts are that in 1964, when Ségolène was 11, the family settled in a large 18th century house, which was a former hunting lodge of the Dukes of Lorraine, in the centre of the village of Chamagne, population 300, in the Vosges. The house was inherited from the family of Ségolène’s paternal grandmother and was near the house of Jacques Royal’s father. Ségolène’s father was elected to the village council, as would have been more or less automatic in those days for a not undistinguished son of a distinguished father. Ségolène has said that it was a sad house with no garden. On the contrary it is a good looking residence with a not unattractive courtyard and there was the village and endless countryside beyond. They had an estate car to carry the family and a red sports car.

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Early Years

The colonel was passionately fond of horses and kept several which he broke himself with the help of his children. The boys from the age of 12 or so regularly drove tractors and used chainsaws to cut the firewood for the house. It was a very outdoor life and many children brought up in the town today might consider it idyllic. A cousin recalls that he and his brothers and sisters were envious of the freedom the Royal children were given, particularly in being allowed to camp out in the woods at night. With such a large family it was necessary for Colonel Royal to take a job to supplement his army pension and he accepted an offer from his brother-in-law, Georges Leverard, to join the family firm, the Manufacture des armes et cycles, known as MACC. Leverard was a successful businessman with a talent for inventing household gadgets. The star of his collection was a collapsible accordion-type ladder that fitted in even the smallest car. In 1963 it won a prize at the Brussels Exhibition, as well as an international Oscar for invention.

Colonel Royal’s new job was to talk to purchasing officers and other wholesale buyers and persuade them to take the company’s products. He seems to have taken to it like a duck to water. He went on courses and developed a keen interest in modern marketing techniques – the marketing director of the company was a graduate of the Harvard Business School, which was rare in those days. Jacques’s job involved a great deal of travelling, particularly as he was responsible for Germany with his fluent German. Georges Leverard chose well, and Jacques proved a success at the job. After he retired he was often heard talking with fondness of his “years as a travelling salesman”. The stereotype of the bigoted traditionalist ex-Army officer adapting uneasily to civilian life does not last long when put against his record in the company. Business success notwithstanding, after the command of a battery of artillery in Martinique, a poorly-heated house in the Vosges must have come as a bit of a shock to the colonel and particularly his wife. It seems that he devoted time and energy

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to making sure that his sons, particularly, grew up as good Catholic, potential officers. He imposed strict rules on the household. Querying the laxity of the religious education that Ségolène was receiving at school, he insisted she took extra lessons from the local curé on Sundays, with a book on theology he provided himself. Culturally, too, there was more to Jacques Royal than just an authoritarian retired colonel who believed in the outdoors. It is true that he was an enthusiast for Gregorian chants, a fact that is endlessly repeated in French books and articles as being his only interest, giving him an eerie image, like a character out of a Gothic novel. But he was also a keen historian, spoke fluent German and could read Latin. Far from discouraging his daughter’s studies, as has been suggested, he was proud of her. The much maligned macho father actually took a considerable interest in his daughter. He insisted that she enter the correct class for her age when the family returned to France, braving the opinion of the headmistress of the school at nearby Charmes that Ségolène would fall behind because the education available in Martinique was not of the same standard as in Metropolitan France. This was probably true but Jacques Royal maintained that she was well up to standard. He told the school “she is a gifted child … the best of my children”. As it turns out, he was right. When he said, as is often disapprovingly quoted, that he had “five children and three daughters” it was the sort of joke that was not unusual at the time – even in England. Ségolène recalls in 1994, “my father always made me feel that my sisters and I were inferior beings”. This is a distortion. It was generally accepted in those days that men performed certain roles and women others. In certain respects men still idealised women and looked up to them. However that may be, Colonel Royal certainly made sure that all his children got a good education. To the accusation that he was reactionary it is fair to say that he was certainly not a Gaullist, let alone a socialist. He detested de Gaulle for dissolving the French Empire and

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accused him of leaving his Harki soldiers4 to die at the hands of the Algerian rebels at the time of independence. In the 1965 Presidential elections, Ségolène has been keen to tell everyone that her father supported the far-right Jean-Louis TixierVignancour, who had become the spokesman for the discontented repatriated pieds noirs5. Tixier had earlier represented the disgraced Marshall Pétain at his trial after the war. Was Colonel Royal embittered, as is frequently alleged, about the defeats of the French army in Indochina and Algeria? Did he believe that modern education was destroying the moral fibre of France? Yes, but no more than many of his class and background who felt the same way. One and a quarter million French electors voted for Tixier against de Gaulle in 1965 – 5.27% of the votes cast. Many of the traditional military families felt very bitter about France’s seemingly endless humiliations in and after the Second World War: in Indochina, in Algeria and with the end of Empire. Many of them also found it hard to forgive de Gaulle for being right in 1940 and continuing the fight when they had tamely agreed to give up. To put things in perspective, it was quite common in the 1950s and 60s to hear it said in Britain in certain circles that “we should never have left India”.

Putting to one side the controversy over the true nature of her upbringing, what sort of a girl was Jacques’ daughter? A gifted child, praised by a stern father not prone to flatter his children. She was certainly reserved or shy. Perhaps a little stuck-up? A neighbouring farmer recalls that her two sisters would come and help herd the cattle and talk to the farmers. Not Ségolène, who is described as peu commode – not very easy to deal with. She says herself, “I was a quiet little girl, quite secretive, who really liked school. I was a good at my studies. I loved school. I did well, it was my world, I adored my teachers.” In this instance it sounds like the simple truth. Muslim Algerians who served as auxiliaries with the French Army during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62).

4

5

French colonists living in North Africa, especially Algeria.

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Boarding school

Leaving school for most children is the first big change in their lives. For Ségolène it was going to boarding school that was the watershed. After the claustrophobic atmosphere of a large family in a small village it was a moment of liberation. At the age of 15, in 1968, she went to a surprisingly progressive Catholic boarding school at Epinal, l’Institution Notre Dame, 38 kilometres from her home. Not far in today’s terms, but then culturally a world away.

Chamagne, where she grew up, was a little village of 300 people, and Charmes, four kilometres away was a bigger village with a main street and a few shops. But Epinal was a proper town with 38,000 inhabitants, the capital of the département. A fellow pupil remembers her as “good in all subjects, even netball. She was good at gym, and played the piano very well. It was almost annoying”. Clearly Ségolène flourished away from home with the nuns. Although the institution was not directly affected by the student troubles of 1968, there can be no doubt that its strict discipline was eased as a result. The events also encouraged the nuns to broaden the syllabus. To be fair, they needed little encouragement. The school was not just for the children of the well-to-do, but also served the surrounding Catholic agricultural community, both rich and poor. Ségolène studied hard and took a course that balanced maths and economics with French and history. Old-fashioned discipline still predominated and the pupils still wore traditional blue overall coats with their surnames embroidered on the breast, with a belt of a different colour for each class. A radical departure was to allow the senior girls to attend a meeting by the centreleft socialist politician Michel Rocard, who was speaking in town. There was television which would not have been the case a few years before. The teaching staff was no longer entirely made up of nuns. Genevieve Bedell, who was a trainee teacher there when Ségolène was a pupil, says that the nuns were “very open to

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outside influences, very spiritual and moral.” They often came from well-off families bringing with them a dowry when they joined the community. She remembers Ségolène as someone who “always had her hand up with relevant things to say”. A former pupil remembers the nuns as “rigid but modern” and comments that although discipline was important it should not be forgotten that it had already been instilled in the families from which the children came. Leisure activities were not neglected, with skiing in the nearby Vosges and all the usual school activities. Ségolène is remembered as an exceptionally hard-working pupil. It was around this time that she developed a keen interest in political programmes on television – in particular interviews by Françoise Giroud, later to be a minister under the centre-right President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. In 1971 she passed her baccalaureate achieving mention assez bien which, whilst not brilliant, was good enough to go straight to university without any interviews or retakes. However she was later to offend her former teachers and schoolfellows by claiming, at the time she first became a deputy, that she had taken the baccalaureate in a state school. She was able to do this with technical truthfulness because, for administrative reasons, the girls from the Institution Notre Dame went to the nearby state Lycée Claude Gellée to sit the exams. No doubt this was again part of her remodelling of her early life to suit her rising ambitions in the Socialist Party. That she sent the school a postcard when she finally achieved entry to ENA6 indicates that, at that time at least, she realised how much she owed them.

Ségolène in Dublin

An interesting picture of Ségolène aged 17 and 18 emerges from the recent discovery that she spent the summer of 1971 The Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the super-elite training school for future top civil servants.

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as an au pair in Dublin. She does not mention this in her biography. It is a curious omission as it was her first trip abroad. Perhaps to have been in the role of a servant did not sit well with the feminist careerist image she was building for herself at the time. The story emerged when a teenage friend from the sixties told the journalist John Lichfield of The Independent about it.

Sheena Beale, now a Dublin solicitor, was sent on one of those French exchanges that did not go well. She did not get on with her correspondent but made friends with the girl who was holidaying in the house next door at Villers-sur-Mer, in Normandy, where the Royal family spent their summers. The girl next door was Ségolène. Of her friendship with Ségolène in 1970, Ms Beale says:

“We spent the summer together, swimming and playing tennis, talking about boys and our future. We both wanted to be lawyers. She was a strikingly beautiful girl with long, dark hair. I thought she looked like Sophia Loren. She was always great fun to be with but a very focused girl, very determined. I never imagined that she would go into politics. I can’t remember ever talking about politics with her. But it does not surprise me at all that she has gone so far. She had a terrific sense of humour and a great sense of fun.”

As a result of this chance meeting, the following year on leaving school Ségolène got a job as an au pair for the summer in 1971 in Dublin with a Mr and Mrs Roche. From Sheena’s recollections, The Independent was able to trace the Roche family, where the children remembered her well. Daughter Graziella recalls: “The Ségolène I remember was a very warm-hearted person, a very kind person, with bags of energy and patience. After the other French au pairs we had had she was a breath of fresh air.”

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An interesting detail that emerges is that the various books written about her, which say that she only stopped using Marie as part of her name when she went to ENA to fit in with her left-wing friends, are wrong. Daniel Bernard, author of the biography, Madame Royal, starts his second chapter with a flourish: “Like changing the name of a street after an election victory, Marie-Ségolène became Ségolène. At 25 … she decided she could do without the protection of the virgin under which her father had placed his sons and daughters.”

There is much more in the same vein. According to Graziella and her brother John, she was already calling herself Ségolène seven years before. “For the anecdote” – as the French say – it seems also that her English was good enough to “converse quite well”.

Another interesting discovery to emerge from her stay in Dublin comes from the Roche family photograph album. As her friend, Sheena, says, she really was quite glamorous. After cultivating a slightly frumpy image during her early career in French politics, her re-looking – much talked about in the French media – would seem to be more of a return to her real self.

Indeed, the picture given at the time of her Irish visit is not of an unhappy child, but rather of a very normal carefree adolescent. It is striking that when she was junior minister for education and was asked by the village of Chamagne to officially open their new primary school, she declined. Reluctance to confront an unhappy past or unease at coming face-to-face with the past that she had, for whatever reason, traduced – or both? In a television interview in 1988, after winning her first election as a Deputy, she says strikingly “I lost my father at an early age and had to study with scholarships”, as if he had died, in her eyes, when he separated from her mother.

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The truth is that, despite her statements that imply the contrary, there was nothing so very extraordinary about Ségolène Royal’s upbringing, except the colourful brilliance and material success of her immediate ancestors. Nor was there anything extraordinary about a clever, strong-minded girl wanting to study so as to have a freer life than her mother and sisters. To some extent that is what the 1968 student riots that broke out, just as Ségolène went to boarding school, were about – escaping from an overly restrictive adult world. For her to say, as she has done recently, “I did not want to be like the women in my family, submissive in every way, and dependant financially, intellectually and emotionally”, is to ignore the fact that in such families wives were generally not submissive in every way. To read the life of General de Gaulle’s wife, Yvonne, is to understand that strong-minded women from these sorts of families were perfectly capable of dealing with their strong-minded husbands, even if on the outside they appeared submissive.

Ségolène has given the impression that only her determination enabled her to go on to further studies, but in fact her father quite freely allowed her at the age of 15 to attend boarding school at the l’Institution Notre Dame d’Epinal. He also allowed her, and at first paid for her, to study at the university in Nancy. It seems that her grandfather General Royal also encouraged her to go on to further studies.

When she first arrived in Nancy, the historical capital of Lorraine, 50 kilometres from her home in Chamagne, she lived in the large house of her maternal grandmother in the best part of town.

Parental separation

Disaster struck however when in late 1971 her mother threatened to leave home. Her father retaliated by serving a notice of legal separation on her. She then carried out her threat and left. He refused to pay her any money or to pay for the

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education of the children. Ségolène then supported her mother in suing her father for maintenance. She won the case nine years later, just before he died of cancer in 1981. There is no doubt that as a result of this crisis she was hard-up at university and, later, at the elite Science Po, to which she won a scholarship. It is certainly one of the factors that have influenced her in her attitude to her father and her feminism. She was never going to be a docile wife dependant on her husband like her mother. No-one, of course, ever knows what really goes on between husband and wife. What is said by those involved has to be regarded with scepticism and nobody else really knows. Perhaps the Royals’ return to France was a disappointment. When her youngest child, Sigisbert, left home to board at the lycée in Epinal, Hélène Royal seems to have found time hanging heavily on her hands. She does not seem to have mixed with the village people at all. With Colonel Royal’s definitive retirement, he was at home all the time for the first time in the married life of the couple. The decision by his parents to give up their flat and come and live full time in the village was, it seems, not an unmixed blessing. They had a house in the village near to Ségolène’s parents. The energetic general occupied himself with criticising his daughter-in-law to his son. It seems he did not appreciate her walking with a goat on a lead in the village. Antoine Royal, the brother born after Ségolène, has said that: “My father was too much under the influence of his own father and his father-in-law as well. They manipulated him. One day I grabbed my grandfather by the collar and shoved him up against the wall and told him to leave us alone.”

True or exaggerated, the Royals were not one big happy family. As has been said already, in the France of those days the family had great influence and it was not unusual to call an extended

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family conference to discuss some domestic difficulty. Matters of inheritance could influence things considerably. It is interesting that Antoine makes it clear that both sides of the family disapproved of the mother. The children were growing up and leaving, and the marriage fell apart.

It is said that Hélène Royal was much affected by the political and social upheaval of 1968, and that it changed her attitude to her husband and both their families. The village priest quotes Ségolène’s mother as saying, after the 1968 student riots, “from now on it is forbidden to forbid”. Ségolène has said of her mother that she was an “ecologist before the word was current”. She was a qualified agronomist. She loved taking the children out into the fields and woods where she explained to them about the different mushrooms, plants and trees. Her determination to lead her own life, and indulge her ecological interests, could have seemed a little fey, if not actually a descent into hippydom, to her starchy old-fashioned family. It has recently been reported that in her later years, Hélène has expressed some sympathy with Arlette Laguiller, the ultra-left Trotskyist minority candidate for the French presidential elections since 1974. Known universally as Arlette to the French, she has a certain popularity well beyond the ranks of those who would consider voting for her. However, if Hélène Royal ever expressed views anything like those of Arlette, who regularly calls for a communist revolution, it is likely that most of the older generation of her family would have seriously questioned her sanity. However, it is worth remembering at this point that children have two parents. In Ségolène’s life, it is the Royal family – because of its spectacular success and courage in the military and its strong, well-defined characters – that is the one talked about, but in her enigmatic way Hélène Royal has been as great an influence on her daughter as her more prominent father. If Ségolène’s method and pugnacity in politics show the hallmarks of her upbringing in a military family, the choice of subjects she has chosen to make her own are largely those

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that her mother cared about and dealt with – the environment, the family and the welfare of children.

Nor was her mother without courage. In all likelihood, her abrupt and unplanned departure from the family home was the result of a flash of anger. But she did not go crawling back to her husband as he seems to have expected her to. In the provincial Nancy society of those days, that required the courage of the non-conformist, of someone who goes their own way regardless of conventional opinion – characteristics that Ségolène has inherited. It is ironic, too, that despite Ségolène’s insistence on the women of her family being submissive, in the end her mother was as steadfast and determined as Ségolène herself.

Nancy University

Be that as it may, in 1971 the 18-year-old Ségolène suddenly found her life as a student in Nancy complicated by the arrival of her very distressed mother, who had left her father. Antoine Royal tells the story of how, on arrival in Nancy, his mother “slept on park benches and under bridges”. If this is true it indicates a deliberate refusal to accept help because Nancy was full of the more or less grand dwellings of her own family. Local journalist François Moulin, an authority on Royal family life and author of Ségolène Royal: Un Destin Français, thinks she may initially have been too ashamed to contact her family. It seems that Madame Royal’s parents were embarrassed and that, anyway, she wanted to go her own way. After several weeks, thanks to family money, she was able to set up her own household. She now lives in the house in Normandy at Villerssur-Mer where in the past the family took their holidays. She keeps donkeys and shoots. By all accounts, she is very content with life.

When Ségolène’s father refused to pay maintenance, either for his children or his wife, a court case was launched in the mother’s name but organised by Ségolène. No doubt Jacques

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thought that this control of the purse strings would force them to come back to Chamagne and the family home. If so, he miscalculated. The court case lasted nearly ten years and ended successfully for Ségolène’s mother. Jacques Royal died of cancer in June 1981, just after the case was over – with ironic timing, practically on the day the Socialists he so detested finally won power in France, and just as his daughter was taking her first steps on the ladder that would lead to the top of French politics. Although six of his children refused to have any contact with him after the separation, they all attended his funeral.

Ségolène said later that her parents’ separation was a bit of luck for her “because without it I would not have been able to escape to Paris”. However we know from school friends’ memories that even before she took her baccalaureate, and therefore before the separation, it was her ambition to go to the elite Science Po. She recorded this hope in her Père Cent scrapbook that pupils then traditionally prepared 100 days before they took their final exam. In those days, unlike today, the baccalaureate was a considerable academic obstacle which pretty much decided the course of the rest of a student’s life. However, it was her father that allowed her to study at Nancy University and there is no evidence that he would have stopped her going on to the elite Science Po. On the other hand there is no doubt that for Ségolène to have continued with her studies without the financial support of her family required courage, determination and motivation. Not to have dropped out when her family fell apart shows how tough she was – just like the rest of the family.

“I had never heard of the grandes écoles,” Ségolène said about her knowledge of the academic world at the time she left school. Again this is an exaggeration and part of her later rewriting of her childhood. A bright girl from a bourgeois family – who was the daughter of a man with academic interests, who had passed into the Polytechnique, and who was the granddaughter of a general who had actually attended that

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particularly famous grande école – must have heard of them. Any French family that boasts a member that has attended a grande école is acutely aware of the fact, and proud of it. Very likely, she was naïve and certainly inexperienced. Daniel Bernard, who includes this quotation in his book Madame Royal, also says that she discussed what courses to do after university with her elder sister, who worked in educational administration in Nancy. It was she who steered her towards Science Po via the Centre Universitaire d’Etudes Politiques, the CUEP at Nancy. The University of Nancy was unique at that time in the French provinces in having a preparatory course that was linked with Science Po in Paris. That was the great good fortune for Ségolène, not her parents’ marital breakdown. On the other hand, when Ségolène says that she chose Science Po largely by chance, that would seem to be true. She sought the traditional route to independence and financial security in France – a first class qualification – and she was not very fussy which one it was.

Guillaume de Chanlaire – her first love affair

Despite the divorce, all was not doom and gloom for Ségolène. It was at the university in Nancy that she had her first love affair. The tall and good-looking Guillaume de Chanlaire was the well-to-do Catholic son of a champagne producer. Despite his background, he was on the left politically, and was associated with the Christian young socialists movement, the Jeunesse Étudiantes Chrétiennes. They shared a room in Nancy. Both she and her boyfriend were aiming eventually to win entrance to the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) and followed the same courses. She was able to develop her cultural interests as well. Nancy is a great cultural centre and she was an avid theatre-goer. Under the influence of Jack Lang, a brilliant young law lecturer, of whom more later, the experimental theatre was particularly popular with students. International exponents of avant garde drama were regular visitors.

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During her time at university, Ségolène gradually integrated with the left. However, her real preoccupation was feminism, and it was through it that she became a socialist. She was, according to fellow students, quite aggressive on the subject, “without becoming a harpy” says one (male) fellow student. The future President Mitterrand was at the time actively promoting the idea that the aims of feminists and socialists were one and that only through socialism could feminist aims be achieved. It was through feminism that Ségolène developed her knowledge and interest in other social questions like contraception, the right to abortion, inequality of salaries, the difficulties of professional women with families, and differences of treatment of women in their careers in both the private and public sectors. Not surprisingly, given her recent family experience, she took great interest in the question of the then little acknowledged workload and contribution of women in the home. Former fellow students recall a very pretty girl gradually relaxing from the constraints of her traditionalist upbringing. The well-ironed jeans and riding boots gradually gave way to long-haired Afghan waistcoats and the long skirts fashionable at the time. One of her male fellow students, now a lawyer in Nancy, recalls: “She always remained very natural, no make-up, no big clanking jewellery. She was radiant, she was a very beautiful woman.”

Outside the faculty, she became close to her maternal grandmother. This comfortably-off widow, living in some comfort in Nancy, was at the same time in sympathy with socialist thinking. She was apparently a very lively woman with an enquiring mind. Her father had been a lawyer loosely associated with left-wing views. Ségolène was able to use the house and particularly the garden as a refuge. In her first book Le Printemps des Grandparents7, written over 10 years later, 7

The Springtime of the Grandparents

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to which we will return, the influence of this woman is obvious. Talking of the role of grandparents in the family, Ségolène writes of grandparents as the “shock absorbers in family conflicts”, providing love and calm stability for the children that protects them from the worst consequences of a marital break-up. The book cites the experiences of other families, but her own experiences are reflected in her conclusions and in the very subject of the book. At a difficult time in her life it is evident that Ségolène was fortunate in having the companionship of her grandmother. Alongside all the student distractions and family problems Ségolène obviously worked hard while she was at Nancy because, whilst her baccalaureate was only average, she passed out third amongst the students at the CUEP in September 1973. This gave her the right to go straight to Science Po. It was her first really outstanding result. As a child she had shown promise in local schools, but to have finished third amongst a hundred students from all over Alsace and Lorraine – many of whom had studied in very selective lycées from Strasbourg, Metz or Nancy before going to university – was an exceptional achievement. Many of her competitors were from families that had a tradition of attending Science Po. She was the top female student of her year.

Science Po

Ségolène and her boyfriend Guillaume were amongst a group of twenty or so students from Nancy University to go to Science Po that year. The course lasted for three years. The 40 or so French grandes écoles have enormous prestige, although they are not well known outside France. They are set apart from the ordinary university system and much more highly regarded. They are to a large extent vocational or technical in their orientation. Science Po is the nickname of the Institut d’études politiques de Paris. Originally founded in 1872 as the private Ecole libre

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de science politique, it was brought into the state sector in 1945 as part of General de Gaulle’s modernisation of the education of France’s elite. It is one of France’s most prestigious higher educational establishments and boasts Jacques Chirac as a former pupil, as well as many leading figures in politics, the civil service, the media, scientific research and business. Students can study law, finance, communication and marketing and journalism. On its own it provides one of France’s top qualifications. The students from Alsace and Lorraine were the biggest provincial contingent in those days because of the special relationship of the CUEP with Science Po. However, by far the largest number of students came from relatively well-off families in Paris who tended to ignore the provincials. The result was that Ségolène and her boyfriend mixed for the most part with the friends they had already made in Nancy. Together they roared around Paris on Guillaume’s Honda 250. To supplement her scholarship she did various part-time jobs as students do. It is worth noting that in those days in France they did it a lot less than their counterparts in Britain or America. Another difference from student life in Britain and America was the weekend train home to Nancy. It is a feature of French universities that, whereas the British and Americans are happy to stay on campus for the social life, the French go home to their families. Ségolène was no exception. The unfriendly attitude of the dominant Parisian students, who did not invite their provincial fellows to evening receptions where staff and students could discuss things in a relaxed manner, may have encouraged this trend. It was at Science Po that she fought her first election, within the feminist movement (against the future wife of Laurent Fabius8). She lost by a mile, but it was a beginning and it again showed courage and determination. Even so, it seems 8 France’s youngest Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1984 to 1986 and later a rival to be the Socialist Party candidate.

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unlikely that a career in politics was part of her ambitions at the time, if indeed she had any. She was far more interested in succeeding in her studies than taking part in student politics. She seems to have kept her troubles and family domestic dramas to herself. A friend recalls: “I drove her home many times in my Citroën 2CV. She never told me anything about her personal life.”

Apart from her friends from Nancy, Ségolène tended to mix with students with left-wing views, although she was not a member of the Socialist Party. It was not until the end of their time at Science Po that she and Guillaume joined the Socialist Party together in 1978, when Ségolène was 25 years old. As at Nancy, her main interest was feminism. She was active in women’s groups which were being set up at the time in lycées, universities, schools and in the community.

It may have been the rivalry with male students that encouraged her to try for ENA. It was also the aim of Guillaume. After one failed attempt, she took a job in the Ministry of Industry after passing a minor exam as an attaché territoriales9, and prepared for a second attempt. At the age of 26 this was her first experience of non-academic work. The work was not too demanding and enabled her to pass into ENA at the second attempt. She jokes about her time in the ministry that there was not a lot to say about the experience, except that she once actually saw the minister. This period of a few months is incidentally the only work she has ever done outside of politics. Guillaume failed at the second attempt and abandoned the ambition.

ENA

If Science Po is for the elite, ENA is for the chosen few. Getting into the Ecole Nationale d’Administration is a 9

An administrative official working in the different regions of France’s civil service.

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considerable feat. The school was set up in 1945 by de Gaulle, to produce highly-educated top civil servants for the new France he wanted to build after the war. It takes only a hundred pupils a year. The students are paid while they are there. ENA has been criticised for producing members of a political caste and it is true that in recent years many top French politicians have been graduates of the school. Presidents Chirac and Giscard d’Estaing, Prime Ministers Dominique de Villepin, Fabius, Rocard, Balladur, Juppé and Jospin are alumni. If it is a caste, it takes talent and hard work to be admitted. The fact that Ségolène needed two tries to achieve entry is not surprising as she was studying under some financial pressure. Students from wealthy families benefit, if they wish, from private studies especially tailored for the exams. Ségolène worked in a minor civil service job, to pay the bills, whilst preparing herself for the ordeal. As noted, her boyfriend, Guillaume, also took the entrance examination twice and failed both times. He then gave up and seems to have dropped quietly out of Ségolène’s life while she went on to study there. Each entry of students has a name. The very first entry in 1947 was, perhaps not surprisingly, La France Combattante – Fighting France. Many of the early teaching staff and students were former members of the resistance. In 1978 Ségolène’s entry was baptised Voltaire, and has produced a number of well-known names, notably President Chirac’s Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. A fellow student, Brigitte Joseph-Jeanneney, remembers that Ségolène did not stand out as a student, unlike her future life companion François Hollande – who was the life and soul of the party, as well as being a brilliant student. She continues: “I remember noticing her from time to time, admiring how pretty she was, distinguished and courteous. I remember her as someone responsible, hard-working. She often went to the language laboratory, no doubt to improve her English. She did not draw attention to

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herself but she was not shy, it is just that she did not push herself forward.”

During their time at ENA students do two placements. Ségolène was lucky enough to return to Martinique for one, and did the other on the outskirts of Paris with François Hollande. It was at this time that the couple became close. Whilst working there they first became aware of the growing problems in France’s inner-city suburbs. At ENA Ségolène further developed her interest in feminist causes.

François Hollande

François Hollande was the son of an ear, nose and throat specialist from Rouen. His mother was a social worker. He was born in 1954. Like Ségolène, he studied at Science Po, but also did a course at the equally prestigious grande école Hautes études commerciales (HEC). He was a brilliant student. Unlike Ségolène, he was an extrovert, good company and a keen football player. Shortly after leaving ENA at the age of 27, in 1981, he stood against Jacques Chirac in the parliamentary elections in the Corrèze. Chirac was already a considerable figure having served in de Gaulle’s last government and been Prime Minister under Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. François had no chance of winning but hoped to force the star of the right into a run-off, which he narrowly failed to do. He got 26% of the vote. It is said, and there is no reason to doubt it, that it was he who encouraged Ségolène to take up politics as a career because he recognized her talent, her quiet charisma and determination. At this stage in their lives anyone making predictions would have forecast that it was he who would be the first to attract national attention and achieve ministerial office. Over the next twenty five years they would make their political careers, not together, but in parallel. First one and then the other would push ahead. In due course François came to be the party apparatchik, rising to be Secretary-General of the

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Socialist Party. The reserved, not to say shy, Ségolène by contrast became prominent in parliament and learnt to be an expert at dealing with the media.

Whilst at Science Po, Ségolène had crossed the path of a turbulent Maoist student who ended up in jail accused of murder, which many people believe he did not commit. It is impressive that whilst doing her placement in Martinique she sent her friend a postcard from Fort de France, saying that she hoped it would bring a little sunshine into his cell and that something could be done about his case. As a student at ENA, the school for top government officials – and with the French civil service at that time entirely governed by the right – she was taking a considerable risk in writing openly to a man who had been convicted of terrorism. It was either bravery or ignorance. It was certainly a sign of a generosity of spirit. Her confidence in her friend was justified because after seven months in prison he was cleared of all charges.

Members of an elite network

The great privilege of attending ENA is that at the end students are assured a place in the top ranks of the French civil service. From there they have the right to go into business or politics and if they want to return to their original département they can. This guarantees material security. Former student Bruno Megret, who attempted and failed to launch a less extreme version of the French national front party, was able to go back and work in the engineering department of the civil service, from whence he came, when he needed to support himself financially. The choice of posting is allocated in accordance with the student’s rank in the final exam. Thus, those passing out highest choose the best posts. François Hollande, who came 11th, was able to join the exclusive Cours des Comptes, the nation’s auditors. Ségolène, who passed out 60th 10, was less There is some doubt as to her exact place in the final list. 60, 90 and 95 have been quoted. ENA will not say, as the information is confidential.

10

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fortunate and chose the much less prestigious post of judge in the TribunaI administrative of Paris – the court in France that deals with litigation concerning the government and government bodies.

As important as job security are the connections which ENA confers on its alumni. For the rest of their working lives, former ENA students are members of an elite network. Friendships made there tend to last for life. It is no small thing to be able to tutoyer11 influential figures in almost every field of activity in a country where it is notoriously useful “to know someone” if you want to get things done. Any French person who achieves entry to ENA has accomplished a great deal. It is not necessary to completely accept Ségolène’s version of her childhood to acknowledge that successfully graduating from this holy of holies of France’s academic world was a remarkable achievement. Contrary to what she suggests herself, she came from quite an academic, bourgeois family, but she had many problems to contend with that would have discouraged a less able or determined person.

By the time she left ENA at the age of 27, in 1981, she had clearly demonstrated that she was an exceptional example of the tough-minded people of the Vosges. Above all, she was a typical product of her family and a chip off the old block – very much her father’s daughter and her grandfather’s granddaughter.

11

To be able to address someone with the familiar tu as opposed to the formal vous.

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2. Mitterrand’s Apprentice 1981 – a watershed year in French politics

If Ségolène had a tough childhood, she fell on her feet when she left ENA in 1981. It was a turning point in her life, not only because it was the end of nearly ten years of higher education, but also because it was the moment when, quite unexpectedly, she moved to the heart of the political action in France. The timing of her arrival on the jobs market was exactly right for the presidential election campaign of 1981. A year earlier she might have committed herself elsewhere. A year later and she would have missed the boat. 1981 was a watershed year in French politics when a majority of the French public was prepared to trust a left-wing government in power for the first time in the history of the French Fifth Republic. After the founder General de Gaulle resigned in 1969, his right-hand man, Georges Pompidou, was unsurprisingly voted in after a fight between two figures on the right. François Mitterrand, the leader of the French left, did not stand as he had lost credibility in his failed attempt to unseat de Gaulle in the student troubles of 1968. Pompidou then died of cancer in 1974, before his first term was up. The election that followed showed the public a little more prepared to move away from the security of Gaullism. They elected another right-wing candidate, but this time it was the centre-right Valéry Giscard d’Estaing of the UDF party rather than the Gaullist resistance hero Jacques Chaban-Delmas. It was not a big step because Giscard d’Estaing had been a notably successful finance minister under de Gaulle, who thought highly of him.

In the election the right had been divided and the rising Gaullist star, Jacques Chirac, had opposed his own party’s candidate in a sort of electoral pact with Giscard d’Estaing. Chirac became the prime minister. Between elections Chirac

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resigned and set up his own RPR party in opposition to Giscard d’Estaing. When the election came in 1981, Chirac opposed Giscard d’Estaing and even recommended his own supporters to vote for the Socialist candidate, François Mitterrand. The election was hotly contested with a higher percentage turnout than in 1974. Giscard d’Estaing got more votes than in 1974, but was still beaten by 52.2% to 47.8%. It was a political revolution. For 23 years since 1958 the left and the old parties had been completely blocked from power by a series of Gaullist-dominated, right-wing coalitions supported by a public with too-vivid memories of the Fourth Republic. François Mitterrand’s victory was greeted with an outburst of joy on the left and deep foreboding on the right. For Mitterrand it was a personal triumph. He had first been a junior minister as far back as 1944, but had been swept away in the fiasco of the Algerian war, along with the other leaders of the Fourth Republic in the Gaullist revolution of 1958. He had doggedly opposed de Gaulle and, despite endless setbacks, had worked ceaselessly to unite the left, including the Communists. The Communist Party had passed its peak of popularity: after the Soviet repression in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, it had become, “the party of the executors rather than the executed”. The party’s tremendous popular support after the war was based on its heroic, if carefully cultivated and exaggerated, role in the French resistance. Despite its reducing popularity, in 1981 the veteran Communist candidate Georges Marchais still won nearly 4.5 million votes in the first round, compared with Mitterrand’s 7.4 million.

At the beginning, to satisfy his Communist allies, Mitterrand was obliged to introduce a radically left-wing programme, including a widespread nationalisation of the banks and insurance companies. However, he ceaselessly manoeuvred to rid himself of his necessary but unwelcome allies. In 1984 they left the government and never recovered their political strength again.

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An adviser to an adviser – working for Jacques Attali

It was in this exciting political atmosphere that Ségolène, aged 27, was recruited to work for Jacques Attali, an important figure in the President’s campaign team. She had been working as an ordinary campaign helper at the Socialist Party headquarters stuffing envelopes when she got this opportunity. Attali had been close to François Mitterrand since 1973 and was looking for bright young people to help in the presidential election campaign. Ségolène was part of a talented team of four. First amongst them was Jean-Louis Bianco, a school friend of Attali and fellow énarque12. He is today Ségolène’s campaign manager for the presidential elections and was to hold the key post of Secretary-General of the Elysée from 1982 to 1988. There was also Paul Morel, a young diplomat and, of course, François Hollande. It would probably be more accurate to say that she was with him. It has been suggested that Attali wanted Hollande and took Ségolène as part of the bargain. Bearing in mind François’ much earlier start in politics, and his more extrovert nature, it is probably true.

Attali was an intellectual phenomenon. He had attended the École Polytechnique, where he passed out first in his year. He had attended Science Po and then ENA, where he passed out third in his year. In 1970, by the time he was 27, he was nominated to the prestigious Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest court, and two years later he published his first book on economics and politics, for which he was awarded a prize by the Académie des sciences. He first met François Mitterrand in the late 1960s, and was well connected in French government circles at the highest level with, amongst others, Giscard d’Estaing’s Prime Minister Raymond Barre, Coluche, the wellknown Socialist comedian, and Jacques Delors13. Since leaving Person who has attended the prestigious ENA. He later achieved a certain notoriety as first Chairman of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development which was set up in the City of London to lend money to the newly-liberated Eastern European states.

12

13

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politics in 1990 he has published on average a book a year and has founded a number of charities. His recruitment of Ségolène and François Hollande is a classic example of how the ENA network operates.

When in May 1981 Mitterrand beat Giscard d’Estaing, Attali was appointed Conseiller spécial14 to the President. It is said that he wanted the key post of Secretary-General of the Elysée. Nevertheless his office was next to the President’s and communicated with it. He was Mitterrand’s ideas man on politics and economics. Every night he submitted a note to the President with his views on the economy and other matters.

Attali had the right to appoint a group to work with him and he decided to keep his campaign team. Thus Ségolène suddenly found herself working in the powerhouse of the French government at a time of great change. True, she was only an adviser to an adviser, but she had a desk in the offices of the head of state which, as the French would say, is not nothing. She has said of this crucial moment in her life: “François and I were very junior in the election campaign, and then, just like that, Attali took us with him to the Elysée! He took both of us, obviously as a pair. It was very exciting – a continuous adventure.”

It should be born in mind that in France the President has greater powers than a British Prime Minister or even the President of the United States. The President of France has been described as an elective monarch. The 1962 constitution of the Fifth Republic was designed by General de Gaulle to make sure that the head of state could always act decisively. Before the war he had watched as government leaders proved impotent in the face of the rising Nazi threat. In 1940, as a fighting general and then as a member of the government, he watched appalled as the French political machine ground to a halt, powerless to act decisively in the face of military disaster. The new constitution was deliberately designed to greatly 14

Special adviser.

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reduce the role of the parties and parliament that he blamed for blocking effective executive action in the past under the Third and Fourth Republics.

In particular, de Gaulle created what is known as the domaine reservé, the area of policy that the President alone is responsible for: the European Union, foreign affairs and defence. The President is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In addition, he has the sole right, without consultation or explanation, to appoint 70,000 different officials in the various departments and agencies of the French government. The President appoints the Prime Minister who, in consultation with him, appoints Ministers. The government cannot be put out of office by the parliament, but the President, if he wants, can call an election at any time. Even when faced with a hostile parliament the President is still a force to be reckoned with. Any one of the 3,000 staff in his headquarters in the Elysée Palace who attracts his backing is already a long way along the road to power and influence. The opportunity this gave Ségolène for future success cannot be overestimated. However, it was up to her to prove to a demanding President that she was worthy of his confidence. The President liked a pretty face but it was brains and political flair that he needed to help him impose himself in a country that had been completely dominated by the right for more than two decades. It was the job of the little group of advisers to help Attali help the President.

However, Mitterrand was an immensely experienced politician and was not easily impressed. His first direct recognition of Ségolène had occurred during the election campaign when, in May 1981 as Socialist candidate, he was to hold a meeting with 600 women just before Election Day. In preparation for this ordeal, she wrote out for him on a series of cards the answer to every conceivable question that these vital female electors might ask. Intrigued by the detailed down-to-earth knowledge of a young woman who he probably regarded as a narrow-minded bluestocking, the President asked where she

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had learnt all this. She was not slow to tell him of her struggle against a tough family background and of her fight against the prejudice of a reactionary father that took her all the way to the Ecole National d’Administration.

Despite being quiet, and only an adviser to an adviser, Ségolène did not hesitate early on to say – or rather write – what she thought. She was not afraid to send a stream of notes for the attention of the President. Jean-Claude Colliard, the head of the President’s private office at the time, has commented rather patronisingly that she showed “frantic energy to get herself noticed”. French writers on the subject have tended to take such comments at face value. The fact is, she had strong views about the policies the President should follow and did not hesitate to say so. In addition, judging by his comment, her memoranda reached the presidential office even if initially most of them were ignored. Moreover, Jacques Attali, her immediate superior, did not stop them. Indeed, it is obvious that Mitterrand, like any President, would have had her moved to a less sensitive post if he had felt she was merely a nuisance.

Apart from writing memoranda for the President, Jacques Attali was the president’s Sherpa – responsible for key preparatory talks at official level prior to the G715 meeting held in France in 1982. Thus Ségolène found herself taking the minutes of the preparatory meetings, which were conducted in English. According to her: “I understood English pretty well but I spoke it badly. Before giving me this job nobody worried about how good my English was. I was relieved to find fellow negotiators who spoke perfect French.”

Talking of this time, she remembers, “When I made a tour of European capitals prior to the Versailles summit the people from the foreign office wondered who I was”. It must have been a heady experience for the girl from the village of four 15

Now, the G8.

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hundred souls in the depths of the Vosges. When the question of the venue arose, she advised the President to hold the meetings for the summit in the disused Le Creusot ironworks – as a symbol of the new phenomenon délocalisation16. The President preferred the Palace of Versailles. As far as symbols were concerned he was as Gaullist as de Gaulle.

Getting closer to the President

She says that she was not prominent – “at the Elysée I was nothing, a little mouse” – but it would seem that as the years went by she quietly developed a significant but discreet role as adviser to the President. As with her childhood, she has tended to give a version of events that does not quite fit the known facts. The truth is, she gradually became quite influential in her own sphere.

In 1982 the “mouse” was promoted to a formal existence in the Elysée hierarchy, with her name on the official organisation chart as a chargé de mission, responsible for the environment, health and youth affairs. Her low profile is confirmed by fellow workers in Mitterrand’s hierarchy who say they don’t remember her doing anything prominent. And Jacques Attali in his memoirs has little to say about her. She seems to have been her usual reserved, hard-working self. Pierre Favier and Michel Martin-Roland in their comprehensive book, Le Décennie Mitterrand, only mention her eight times, and only once before 1988.

In the middle of 1984 there was a major crisis over educational reform with huge anti-government street demonstrations against proposals to limit the financing of private education. On the 4th March, 500,000 people demonstrated at Versailles in favour of independent education. On 24th June, 1.4 million demonstrated in Paris. Ségolène tells us Mitterrand sent for her and ordered her to do a tour of the regional education offices and take the political temperature. “You are methodical, go round the Rectorats17 and find out for me what is going on”. 16

Transfer of capital and jobs to lower cost countries. 41

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A few days later she tells us she was back with a map of France showing the various areas of tension. It seems that the later resignations of the Minister of Education Alain Savary and Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy, were connected with the report she made of resistance in the country to the proposed reforms. She has written of this period:

“When, in 1985, I wrote the President’s New Year speech for the heads of all the government departments both civil and military, nobody knew it was me that wrote it.”

This has been described as modesty. Nevertheless it seems to reveal quiet satisfaction in a growing relationship with the President in her chosen fields of activity: the family, the environment, and social developments generally. She relates: “Every day I sent François Mitterrand a note on some subject that I thought was important. On demographic changes, battered wives, matters of health, I was the only one to give him information like that. It was important to François Mitterrand to sense the feeling of the times.”

It would seem that she was establishing her position as Mitterrand’s adviser on this sort of question and at the same time opening his mind to their importance, which of course then reinforced her own importance to him. A truly symbiotic and self-reinforcing relationship to which we will return later.

She organised a conference entitled “Europe against Cancer” which assembled the leading medical specialists and Nobel prize-winners. She was in touch with the politician and businessman Bernard Tapie who, before his fall, had great influence within the government. She worked on a project called Inner City ’89. One of the organisers of this event, 17

Regional offices of the Ministry of Education.

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Roland Castro, recalls that they were having difficulty getting the decisions they needed. Ségolène picked up the phone to the Elysée and told someone, “I require this letter of authority signed before five clock by order of the President!” And by five o’clock it was done.

Alain de Vulpian

Through this type of work Ségolène became familiar with medical professors, intellectuals, and sociologists, who she selected for flattering invitations to lunch at the Elysée with the President. Of particular interest were the meetings she had at this time with Alain de Vulpian, of Cofremca, on developing social trends. de Vulpian is a distinguished social anthropologist who has focused his field research for more than 50 years on the process of civilization in the western world. After graduating from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris he conducted ethnological research in Sweden and was recognized as a pioneer of social change. In 1954 he launched Cofremca, a research and consulting team designed to help companies and governments invent their future and cope with social change. In 1978 he co-founded the International Research Institute on Social Change (Risc), serving as its President until 1988. He is now Chairman of the Board of Sociovision, the organisation which internationalised the work of Cofremca. In 2004 de Vulpian published A l’écoute des gens ordinaires – Comment ils transforment le monde18. In this book he observes how contemporary civilization is primarily shaped by the transformation of ordinary people as they interact with rapid technological innovation, and how the extreme complexity generated by the process of civilization at all levels of society presents huge governance challenges. The relevance of all this to Ségolène’s interest in, and use of, participative democracy 20 years later in the Poitou-Charente region and in the 2007 presidential campaign is obvious and interesting. 18 ‘

Listening to ordinary people – how they change the world’.

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During her time as an adviser at the Elysée she became friendly with Mitterrand’s long-serving adviser on opinion polls, Charles Saltzman. He had originally impressed the President by predicting that General de Gaulle would not succeed, against what was generally expected, in getting himself re-elected in the first round in 1965. Whilst the weekly ministerial meetings were being held and the office was quiet, he explained to her the art and science of polling. It was he who explained to her that by carefully asking specific sets of questions and studying the answers, it was possible to uncover trends not overtly apparent. We should naturally take it with a pinch of salt when she says today that she never looks at opinion polls.

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3. First Elections Trouville

Ségolène’s first foray into electoral politics was at Trouville, in the département of Calvados, in 1983 at the age of 29. Clearly, she already felt the need for the legitimacy of an election. Close proximity to Mitterrand must have made her understand that it was the only way to real power because it was the only legitimacy that he recognized. The Calvados was ideal for her. It was within easy reach of Paris and also convenient for seeing her mother at nearby Villers-sur-Mer. Hélène Royal lived in the same house that Ségolène had stayed in with her brothers and sisters as a child. Ségolène planned to have a family and the idea of having her mother near to help with an eventual baby was very attractive.

Ségolène was happy to tell the local paper L’Eveil Côte Normande in January 1983 that “in truth, I am from Villers because all my family have settled there and I come to the area every week”. Initially, she had difficulty convincing the local socialists to take her seriously, but by judicious use of her proximity to the President she was finally accepted as number three on the Socialist list19 for the local elections. Unfortunately, the Socialists were beaten in the elections and Ségolène found herself in opposition.

The regional paper Ouest France was quick to take up the theme of the Benjamine of the Elysée – the youngest woman on the President’s staff. Ségolène proposed “a hundred propositions” for the coming mandate, an echo of François Mitterrand’s 110 propositions of the 1981 presidential elections, and a foretaste of her 100 propositions in February 2007. Helped by more experienced colleagues, it was in Trouville that she learnt local politics – in the shops and at the

In certain French elections the candidates are entered on lists and, depending on the number of votes cast, some or all are elected.

19

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market and the pétanque ground. She battled constantly over local issues, pavements, one-way streets, lamp posts and all the detail that comes the way of a local representative. After six months she startled her own side, and the mayor of the commune, by calling a press conference. The state of Trouville was “worse than we thought”, she trumpeted. This confrontational approach in a town known for its sleepy genteel politics was not innocent. Her plan was to get adopted locally for a constituency in the national legislative elections of March 1986. Allegations that she had a bad attendance record seem wide of the mark. On the contrary, former Socialist fellow councillors remember her as almost irritating in her keenness for herself and them. Any knowledge of Ségolène’s personality makes it very unlikely that she was a slacker. It is possible that her duties at the Elysée meant that she could not always be present for meetings. Her plan was to build a political power base in an area she knew, where she was known, and which suited her domestically. Trouville was easy for Paris and her job, and her mother, who wanted her to succeed, was nearby to help with the children. When the area Socialist Party met to decide who should represent it in the constituency she had her arguments ready: “I am 33 years old. I’ve just had a second child and I work with François Mitterrand, the man I respect the most in the world.”

It was to no avail. A few weeks later Minister Yvette Roudy was imposed on the constituency and that was that. According to one of Mitterrand’s close friends, who was an official in the constituency, Mitterrand never even knew that Ségolène had tried to get the seat. She certainly did not, at this stage, have sufficient influence to get him to intervene on her behalf. Part of the problem was that Trouville was not just convenient for Ségolène, it was convenient for a lot of other figures in the party with a great deal more political clout than her. Mitterrand must by this time have registered that she was a talented young

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woman, but with a difficult parliamentary election in front of him he was not about to offend powerful supporters.

It is impossible to be sure whether the President knew about Ségolène’s failed attempt to be selected as a parliamentary candidate or not. Most French commentators have concluded that she was beneath his notice at this stage, relying on accounts from senior party members who relate that they never took her application seriously. ‘Mex’ Mexandeau, an old intimate of Mitterrand’s, and chairman of the selection committee, said “we passed straight on to the next business”. He says Mitterrand knew nothing about it – “we never talked about it”. She herself has downplayed her role in the President’s team.

However, common sense and a knowledge of Ségolène makes it seem very unlikely that in her daily communications with François Mitterrand, for whom she had already done quite important work, as related above, she had had neither the wit nor the courage to make sure he knew. Why would she not have asked him outright for help, even if only in writing? Whatever the truth, Ségolène decided that there was no future for her in the Trouville area. Perhaps it was Mitterrand himself who told her this. It is very likely that whilst he would do nothing that might interfere with his own electoral prospects, he took an interest in the first attempts to fly by his clever young chargé de mission. His former adviser Erik Orsanna says of him, “For Mitterrand an adviser was nothing. Getting elected, that was what he believed in”. Ségolène’s failure at, and departure from, Trouville was a typical incident in the early career of an ambitious young politician. In November 1986 she gave her reasons for leaving politics in the area to the local paper: “Consideration for my family is the sole reason for my decision to resign from the Council. As the mother of a little boy of two years and a little girl of four months I no longer have the time necessary to fulfil my role as an elected representative. I only have the weekends for

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my children, I cannot be here and in Trouville at the same time…I do not exclude the possibility of presenting myself for election again in Trouville when my children are older.”

This was complete nonsense, of course. As demonstrated by the fact that less than two years later she was prepared to accept a Parliamentary constituency in the Deux Sèvres, 400 kilometers from Paris and her mother. Evidently, tact was called for because it was possible that she might want to come back to the area at some time in the future. An honest declaration of thwarted ambition would have been unwise, particularly at this early stage in her career.

Curiously no mention is made of this, her first foray into electoral politics, in Ségolène’s autobiography. It was journalists who unearthed the details from the local papers in 2004 with her new prominence as President of the PoitouCharente region. Did she consider it too boring to relate? Not part of her image? Too humiliating? The omission, combined with her outrageous flattery of Mitterrand, and the less than frank reason for abandoning politics in the area, are seemingly part of her make-up at this time. She showed a bold determination to get what she wanted. Her attitude to small lies about herself are the actions of a young politician in a hurry. No doubt she would say that they did no-one any harm and were the price to be paid in a political career, which was already difficult enough for a young woman and a mother with an inconvenient background. It certainly reveals a young woman who lacked the confidence that she has today to tell it how it is. Her situation was different then and the world has changed. Compare the doublespeak then with her blunt statement in January 2007 when it was revealed that she and François Hollande owned sufficient assets to pay the ISF20. “Yes,” she replied bluntly, “it is the fruit of thirty years work as a professional. So what?” 20 French wealth tax. It is potentially embarrassing for a Socialist politician in France to admit to being rich enough to be liable to pay this tax.

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Her first book

Throughout her career Ségolène has always reacted in a slightly unexpected way, never quite the same as other women politicians, or indeed other politicians. It is perhaps a little early in the book to point out that there is one other politician in France who reacts as unexpectedly as she does and that is Nicolas Sarkozy.

Her reaction to this setback to her electoral ambitions in Trouville was to write a book. Not just any old political tome relating her views on socialism and competing with the views of so many others, but a book about grandparents.

Grandparents? Not an obvious choice for an énarque and an ambitious politician working in the Elysée. It seems that the setback in Trouville caused Ségolène to think through her strengths and weaknesses and to play to her strengths.

In her work advising the President on contemporary trends, and no doubt also as a result of her personal experiences, Ségolène had been forcibly struck by the new generation of fit and healthy grandparents. They were, she realised, a new intermediate generation between middle age and old age. She also realised that they were crucial in the new world of working women and divorcing families. The book was called Le Printemps des Grandparents: La Nouvelle Alliance des Ages21. It begins as follows: “The spring of the grandparents is here. A new generation is coming into being which is unlike any other. Before the age of 52, one out of every two women is a grandmother. By 55 one out of every two men is a grandfather. The 10 million grandparents are young. They are also more active, more tolerant, better educated, more curious and better off. They are truly modern without abandoning their traditional characteristics. At the same time, conflict between the

21 ‘

The Springtime of Grandparents: The New Alliance of the Generations’.

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generations which marked the decade of the 60s is dying down. The first to understand this coming together are the adolescents who curiously empathise with their grandparents and sometimes share their way of looking at the world…”

It is a down-to-earth study of the new role of grandparents but it is optimistic and occasionally almost poetic.

The first page carries a long quotation from the famous and enormously popular lyrical writer Marcel Pagnol. Pagnol, better than anyone, combined an intimate picture of the ruthless brutality of peasant life in France and its poetry, notably with his autobiographical La Gloire de Mon Père and Manon des Sources. The passage quoted by Ségolène tells the story of a little boy who is a hunchback. What, he asks his grandmother, is a hunchback? Hunchbacks, she replies, are fairies who hide their wings under their coats. One day the grandmother dies. “A hunchback and a grandmother go well together, you can sing about it”, reflects the little boy. “But a hunchback who has lost his grandmother is just a hunchback.” Strange stuff from a Socialist bluestocking.

Le Printemps des Grandparents was a considerable success, selling 100,000 copies. She appeared twice on television to promote it. Not only was it a commercial and literary success, it was also a shrewd electoral stepping stone, in a number of ways. Firstly, and most obviously, the 33-year-old Ségolène with two children had understood the electoral power of the grandparents of France and harnessed it to boost her profile and popularity.

Secondly, her authorship of a book was something that was guaranteed to please the President. François Mitterrand loved books above all things. Whilst he was uncomfortable with highly-trained énarques, he loved writers. France’s new Bibliothèque Nationale22, finally completed in 1996, was his 22

National Library of France.

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legacy to the nation. It would have done Ségolène nothing but good to reveal to him her literary talents. It also showed him that her theoretical notes on social trends really were potential ammunition for electoral warfare.

Thirdly, the book marked her out from the classical feminists because it was not about a few exceptional women and their minority views, it was mainstream. It was light years away from the Communists and the class war warriors of the Socialist Party. In the way it used the testimony of unknown ordinary people it was an early example of the use of something very like the technique of “participative democracy”. To understand how significant this departure was, consider the contrast between Ségolène‘s ode to grandparents and a notorious speech at the party conference at Valance in October 1981 by fellow Party member, Paul Quilès, later a minister, known by the nickname ‘Robespaul’: “It is not enough to say that heads will roll! We have to say whose and when!” he declaimed.

Cohabitation – the second mandate and the chance to enter national politics

The 1986 parliamentary elections went badly for the left. Although Jacques Chirac did not win an overall majority, his Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) and electoral allies won a majority, ushering in the first cohabitation23 of the Fifth Republic. The Socialists lost 63 seats. Their Communist former allies who generally supported them lost 9 seats. It was the beginning of a difficult period in the Elysée. However, it revealed François Mitterrand as the consummate politician that he was. In two years of masterly inactivity he quietly undermined the efforts of the dynamic Chirac to consolidate his hold on power and unseat him at the next Presidential elections. He slowly but surely moved towards 23

When a majority in parliament is held by a Party different from that of the President.

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the centre. A measure of his success is that on May 8th 1988 he was re-elected President with an increased majority of 54% over Jacques Chirac. The indignities of two years of cohabitation were over and they had not, as many had expected, introduced a Chirac presidential victory. On May 14th the President announced that he had tried to form a coalition government but failed. Using his presidential powers to break the deadlock, he therefore called a parliamentary election asking for a majority with which to govern effectively.

In 1986, Ségolène had failed to fight a seat. Now, in 1988, she was desperate to find one. Her companion François had first fought a seat in 1981. It has been said that she was surprised by the President’s victory and had not secured a seat in the legislative elections that were to follow a month later. This does not sound like Ségolène. Others say that she pressed leading party figures to find her a constituency but without success, which sounds more likely. According to a book published in January 2007, veteran Socialist and former Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy remembers her coming to his office looking for a seat to fight and his offering her Deux Sèvres. Jacques Attali says that: “On the 14th of May, François Mitterrand, surprised by the enthusiasm of this young woman that he wrongly believed to be a fragile technocrat, proposed a constituency in rural Deux Sèvres, sure that she would refuse. She did not hesitate for a second.”

This suggests that the President did not know Ségolène very well, which is a little odd after seven years.

Strange happenings at the Presidential investiture

Whilst Ségolène probably importuned everyone she knew, thanks to the opening of the new television archives at the Institut National Audiovisuel24, we now know at least part of 24

INA (www.ina.fr)

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the story. The journalists Emmanuelle Cohen and Emmanuel Lejeune have unearthed television film of the President’s investiture on May 21st that by a freak occurence revealed what really happened. It provides a unique insight, on national television, into the relationship between the young adviser and her President in the aftermath of his electoral triumph.

The investiture is the solemn moment when the President of the Constitutional Council declares the President formally elected in front of 150 of the most influential citizens of France. All the great officers of state, civil and military, as well as distinguished guests and what is known in government slang as la maison25, are present. At the same time, the new President is confirmed as the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour. Outside on the lawns of the Elysée Palace is the entire Republican Guard with a squadron of tanks that fire a 21-gun salute.

Amidst this Republican splendour – and captured on film – Ségolène is, astonishingly, revealed making her play for a parliamentary seat. In a script that could have been written by Alexander Dumas, we see the President accept his new mandate, make a short restrained keynote speech and then, to the 17th century music of Louis XIV’s court musician JeanBaptiste Lully, he tours the room with the assembled guests formed into a U shape, shaking hands with prime ministers, ministers of state, generals, judges and other key figures. A quiet murmur, a nod of the head, quiet congratulations – but no serious conversation, it would have been out of place. Then, below the ministers, the civil leaders, the military, the private guests and even the Elysée press, he greets his close collaborateurs, Jean-Louis Bianco, Jacques Attali – who the television commentator reminds us has the adjoining office to the President – and there, waiting by a pillar like Milady de Winter, is Ségolène. We see her, wearing an intense smile, the The expression la maison is a throwback to royalist times – la maison du roi – and denotes the President’s close personal advisers in the Elysée.

25

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view partly blocked by an aide, hold his attention and ask, “Can’t you do something for me?” The moment is electric. The notoriously imperturbable President looks momentarily taken aback and pauses long enough to reply, “You know very well it is too late”, and then repeats, as Ségolène looks at him imploringly, “It is really very late”, and he moves on, pausing to murmur to an aide with a glance back at Ségolène. Her friend Sophie Bouchet-Petersen and the other officials around them show no sign of having heard anything exceptional. The President moves out onto the lawn to inspect the Republican Guard whilst Ségolène stares after him with the slightly shocked expression of one who knows she has just staked everything to get what she wants. A few minutes later the President returns to the room for a brief reception and calls over Louis Mermaz, Minister, former President of the National Assembly and key figure in the Socialist legislative election campaign, and says “You see that young woman? I think she is starting to get bored with Elysée. Have you got a constituency available?”

Mitterrand was at the height of his powers and his overwhelming influence is demonstrated by the speed with which his delicately phrased wishes were complied with. It was the last legal day for notifying a candidature. The Socialist Party headquarters protested that at this late stage they could only offer her the chance to become a replacement deputy – a suppléant26. But despite this, the second constituency of the Deux Sèvres was made available. The Préfet was telephoned to tell him to expect a candidate. An aide was instructed to lend her a thousand francs to put down the legal deposit to stand for election and a chauffeur-driven car was made available to get her to the prefecture at Niort to sign the papers just before midnight, still wearing the same clothes that she had worn when speaking to the President earlier in the day. She slept that

The person who takes over from a deputy in the event of their being disqualified for one reason or another e.g. if the sitting deputy becomes a minister and has to leave his seat.

26

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night in a local hotel in the town of Niort which she had never visited before in her life.

We can only be amazed that at this great moment in his life François Mitterrand took time out to secure a constituency for his apparently obscure adviser. In a quite astonishing way she had challenged him and pushed him to help her and use all his powers to get her what she wanted. Equally, we can only admire Ségolène’s raw courage in daring to raise it with him in the way she did.

The relationship with Mitterrand

The question obviously arises, why did he bother? The exact nature of their relationship remains something of a mystery. She herself has done nothing to indicate that it was close or that she had significant influence. And yet the facts speak for themselves. God-like, he had found her a seat. Once she was installed he was to back her heavily with government funds in the constituency for the restoration of the waterways of the Marais Poitevin. Four years later she was to become a minister before her more experienced companion François Hollande, who had originally seemed to be well ahead in the race for political honours. Not only would she be a minister but she would be ninth in the order of precedence in the government. She has never wavered in her commitment to François Mitterrand. There is the naïve “the man I most admire in the world” statement of the would-be candidate in 1986. In 1988, when elected as a deputy thanks to his sponsorship, she says her first thoughts are of her children and of him. At the defeat of his last government in 1993, and despite a great deal of scandal, she never criticised him. As we shall see, when she launched her bid to become the Socialist presidential candidate she made it clear that she regarded herself as his successor.

How close was she to François Mitterrand? She worked with him for seven years. Right from the start she was uninhibited in giving her advice. It seems that gradually he learnt to respect

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that advice until the point was reached when he gave her the vital assistance she needed to become a nationally elected representative and then chose her for a critical appointment in his government to counter the growing threat of the Green party. One would expect there to have been a close relationship of confidence openly acknowledged on both sides, but according to contemporary observers this was not so. So why would this tough and devious politician help her in extremis? It is true that from 1986, until his re-election, the President and his staff in the Elysée were living through cohabitation with the young and dynamic Jacques Chirac as prime minister. They were to some extent under siege. Was his endorsement of her an acknowledgment that her advice had been critical in his tough win against Chirac in 1988? This theory would be plausible, except that if he valued her contribution so highly why had it been necessary for her to beseech him in public at the last minute to get a seat? Surely, arrangements would have been made earlier. One of the difficulties in assessing their relationship is that she had almost completely passed beneath the radar of contemporary political observers whilst working as an adviser. Not only that, but recently she herself has said she was a “mouse” in the Elysée. Part of the explanation could lie in the fact that she specialised in subjects – the family and the environment – which no-one but her, and eventually the President, took seriously. About her silence on big national issues, she has said, “I did not have the political, historical or institutional background necessary to be sure of myself”. One interesting comment about her work for the President comes from architect Roland Castro, who said of her, “Ségolène served the President”. He thought this unusual. “I felt that she was not at the Elysée to quench her own thirst for power.” It has been written of her that she has never claimed the role of eminence grise and yet the emerging evidence shows that in her specialist policy area, she was exactly that. A careful study of the television archives indicates that her friendship, or at

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least her acquaintance, with Danielle Mitterrand, the President’s wife, predated the setting up of the Elysée crèche in 1985, which has generally been assumed to be the date when she got to know her. In 1983 she is shown on film chatting with her on a presidential picnic and PR exercise in Burgandy, which incidentally reveals her as one of a handful of ministers and friends present. Presents of christening mugs with the presidential insignia celebrated the birth of Ségolène’s three eldest children, Thomas born in 1985, Clémence in 1987, and Julien in 1988, accompanied by personal letters.

As previously noted, Mitterrand did nothing to help her get a seat to fight in the parliamentary elections of 1986. The television records again reveal that the publication of her book Le Printemps des Grandparents attracted quite a lot of publicity. They confirm that she appeared at least twice on national television at the end of 1987 and the beginning of 1988. Certain things stand out from these two broadcasts. The first is that they are redolent of the self-publicising techniques that Ségolène was to make her speciality in later years. A book about a social subject attracts general media interest. In the second broadcast she is seen going off to work at the Elysée heavily pregnant and accompanied by her two young children. She is also interviewed in her office in the Elysée. This was all good stuff, the kind of imagery that would impress any future constituency. It could not have gone unnoticed by Mitterrand. It also reveals a far earlier hunger for, and appreciation of, the media than has been supposed by French biographers. What is also revealed is an attractive, calm and above all supremely confident television performer. In the light of this knowledge, what she wrote in 1996 in La Vérité d’Une Femme about herself and the President at the time takes on more significance: “So it was on this occasion that I met him for the first time [1981 in the election campaign]. He was pretty pleased with his performance in front of the Assembly of women! In writing that, I realise now the extent to

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which I was, without knowing it, in a position to understand and serve François Mitterrand. To serve does not mean servility. I respected him deeply but he never intimidated me. I stood up straight in front of him when so many men behaved like little boys and so many women wondered whether to use their femininity or not.

He liked to be spoken to frankly and if necessary to be argued with. And when necessary that is what I did. Once he was angry with me. I had suggested to him replacing the rebuilding of the Opéra Bastille by major works in the inner city suburbs. For the first time the note that I had sent to him did not come back. Several days later in the Salle des Fêtes in the Elysée Palace, after an awards ceremony, he rebuked me. I was given to understand that the exercise of power meant that there should be no wavering once a plan had been decided upon and that anyway France had the resources to rehabilitate the suburbs as well as the opera.”

There could not be a clearer picture of a close, trusted yet respectful adviser, something you would expect a self-publicist to boast about and contemporaries to write about.

Some reasoned speculation is permitted. During the years that Ségolène was working as an adviser to Mitterrand there were a number of major scandals. With scant regard for medical confidentiality, his doctor Claude Gubler wrote a book revealing that from 1981 the President had suffered from prostate cancer but arranged for false health bulletins to be published. As President, he maintained not only his wife but his mistress and illegitimate daughter in the Elysée Palace. A far cry from the time of General de Gaulle, when the general paid his own phone bills and for the food consumed by any members of his family or private guests. From 1982 to 1986 Mitterrand established an anti-terrorist unit under his personal control. Its main aim seems to have been the illegal telephone tapping of political rivals and journalists,

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particularly those that might reveal the existence of his illegitimate daughter. There were murky goings-on in Africa. In 1985 French secret agents blew up the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, killing a photographer, to stop it interfering with French nuclear tests. Beneath the quiet seductive charm there was a sinister side to François Mitterrand. More scandals were to emerge after Ségolène left the Elysée.

It is worth recalling at this point that the Secretary-General of the Elysée, the President’s chief of staff, throughout most of this period, from 1982 to 1988, was Jean-Louis Bianco, who it will be remembered was in 1981 one of the four young bloods along with Ségolène and François Hollande who made up Jacques Attali’s original research unit. He had been at school with Attali. He would have known most if not all of Mitterrand’s secrets at this time and therefore it is reasonable to believe that his friend Ségolène, also working in close touch with the President, knew some if not all of them as well. He is now co-director of Ségolène’s campaign team for the 2007 Presidential elections. The speed and ruthlessness with which the President satisfied his young advisor’s wishes to be a candidate cannot easily be construed as the casual granting of an unimportant favour. As he moved between a 21-gun salute and a guard of honour, he solved her problem in minutes. Mitterrand was a veteran infighter who had seen off a thousand enemies in his 50-year career, from the Gestapo to General de Gaulle and the Communist Party. He was a difficult man to shake. Why did he not cut her dead for her impertinence and dismiss her in the morning as any other President would have done? It is difficult to square her very low profile at this time with the obvious influence she had on the President. It is true her political interests were not regarded as important at the time. She has in recent years downplayed the closeness of the relationship. Was this so that when she claims the positive side of the Mitterrand inheritance, the negative aspect does not taint

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her? In his memoirs, Jacques Attali hardly mentions her and then only in passing, despite the fact that they worked together for seven years. His explanation for this is that they worked so closely together, “were so symbiotic”, that he did not need to. It seems a bit unlikely that a man of his prominence and known closeness to Mitterrand would worry about being put in the shade by an unknown 35-year-old researcher. The idea that she was so quiet and so boring in his eyes over seven years is possible, but hardly fits with Ségolène’s known personality. Is it possible that out of loyalty to his old master he did not wish to draw attention to her close relationship with the President? Or did Ségolène ask him to play it down? We know, on the other hand, that prior to her trip to China in January 2007 in his footsteps, she asked him, in his contacts to journalists, to emphasise it. At the end of Mitterrand’s reign, and after his death in 1996, Ségolène and François Hollande gave an impression of fanatical, even unreasoning, loyalty. Her lawyer and friend Jean-Pierre Mignard says, “I never heard her criticise Mitterrand”. He is also quoted as saying: “She does not share Mitterrand’s hedonistic vision of politics. On the other hand she learnt through contact with him his skill and above all political willpower in the interest of her political ideas.”

After he left office there was an angry Université d’été27. At this event, Lionel Jospin distanced himself from the discredited President. Certain Socialist members violently criticised those who were prepared to excuse anything, including Mitterrand’s recently revealed friendship with René Bousquet, the wartime police chief who surrendered thousands of Jews to the Nazis and ultimately the concentration camps, and his concealment of the Franscisque28 award he had received 27

The Socialist summer school.

Honour bestowed from 1940 to 1944 by the head of the Vichy government to devoted supporters. 28

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from Marshall Pétain, for services rendered as an official in the days of the Vichy government. The comment of Pierre Moscovici in Le Monde, “Hollande, Royal and Bredin insulted me, (for criticising Mitterrand) as if they are incapable of separating in their minds his future from theirs”, is particularly interesting. In her defence against these attacks Ségolène contented herself with saying, “every era has its shadowy aspect. I am not a public prosecutor”. No-one is better than Ségolène at flaunting her positive attributes and yet she is diffident about her role at the Elysée, even as she claims the Mitterrand inheritance. The evident difference between what the close relationship between the young adviser and the old President was, and its public characterisation, remains puzzling.

Election in Deux Sèvres

When Ségolène arrived in the Deux Sèvres – as the French say “like a hair in the soup” – the local constituency party had already selected its own local candidate. They were naturally not best pleased at this display of monarchical influence in favour of an unknown 35-year-old woman from Paris. They were particularly incensed because they were not even allowed to choose the suppléant or replacement either. Instead of their man, the national party insisted on Jean-Pierre Marché, a longstanding departmental councillor who was believed to able to be swing the votes of the Protestants and the Freemasons. However, at this stage in his presidency, the prestige of François Mitterrand was such that no-one argued. Not only was Mitterrand the sitting Socialist President, he was also local, if not to the constituency, at least to the region. He was born in Jarnac, a small town 50 miles away in the neighbouring département of the Charente. His father had been a small businessman trading in vinegar. He knew the area well and often visited it with old friends when he wanted to get away from Paris and politics.

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Ségolène says that Mitterrand had warned her that she would not win the seat. “That is how everybody starts”. There is perhaps a tendency to exaggerate the extent of her win, which Ségolène has not discouraged. After all, the constituency was known to have voted 58% for Mitterrand in the recent presidential elections. The government information service had also calculated that the seat was winnable, if not a sure thing. Ségolène has perhaps been content to create the impression that her victory was harder than it really was. Certainly, the party believed the seat was not going to be won easily and it had been turned down by at least one political hopeful. Time was short. There was barely a month before the elections. Not only was the candidate a novice but the constituency, the second Deux Sèvres, was newly-formed and therefore organisationally unknown territory. The opposing candidate representing the right was a UDF moderate, Pierre Billard, a well-liked local man, mayor of Celles-sur-Belles, and a departmental and regional councillor. On top of everything else, Ségolène did not have a car. Two things helped her in this difficult situation. The candidate who had thought that he was to fight the seat was Jean-Paul Jean, a professional magistrate who had been President of the magistrates’ trade union. Despite the cavalier way in which he was treated, he loyally assisted in her campaign to the point of driving her round the constituency and introducing her. He has recalled recently that he received a telephone call during the afternoon that Ségolène burst into his life from Louis Mermaz, who told him, “I have just come from the office of the President. His adviser will be the candidate. She is leaving now. Meet her in Niort in front of the prefecture at nine o’clock tonight.” At nine o’clock Ségolène duly appeared and the prefect handed her a dossier on the constituency as if she was a visiting minister. Without beating about the bush, Ségolène told the man whom she had so brutally displaced, “I imagine that the situation is not easy for you but now we have to win”.

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No regrets and no sentiment. Jean-Paul Jean has recalled, “in those days it would have been inconceivable to argue with the decision like that”.

Three days later the party activists gathered to inspect their new candidate. Around a hundred sceptical Socialists assembled in a little hall in the local town of Melle, waited to see what the newly-arrived Parisian would say. It was a crucial moment. The faithful Jean-Paul gave her some good advice at the last minute: “Don’t try to pretend that you know the area. Just say that François Mitterrand, who is particularly fond of the area and is a native of the Charente, asked you to come. Say that the President is concerned about promoting women candidates and leave it at that.”

For once in her life Ségolène did exactly what she was told. When a local farmer challenged her in the patois of Poitou, she did not pretend to understand. She made a convincing appeal to party members to join her in the fight against the right. At the end of the speech, the crucial audience were convinced by her energy and applauded her. Yves Debien who was present and later became one of her key supporters remembers, “This first meeting ended as a campaign committee. Everyone went away knowing what they had to do.” Without wishing to take anything away from the nobility of soul of the deposed candidate, when one looks at his subsequent career it is not unreasonable to assume that he had been told that if he was helpful to Ségolène he would be looked after. He was subsequently appointed to the Inspection générale des affaires judiciares and served as a technical adviser to three ministers of Justice. He is now Director of the Mission de Recherche Droit et Justice. By accident or design, the constituency had certain characteristics that were tailor-made for Ségolène. From 1958 to 1973 it had already been represented by a woman, La Baronne Madeleine Aymé de la Chevrelière, who, although she was unlikely to have been an admirer of François

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Mitterrand, was nevertheless of the right sex. It was also a constituency with an ageing population. She began with the classic tour of the markets. It did not go well. The peasants raised their caps politely and got on with their business. What did this young Parisian have to do with them? The local opinion polls confirmed the impression. To make things difficult, an unofficial Socialist candidate was standing and would inevitably take votes away from her. Her opponent was confident and took to displaying the slogan “what we need is a local MAN”. Ségolène said of this period:

“The hardness, the rigidity of my father, the very painful family problems that I suffered, in the end made me very tough. Those who are too happy in their childhood have more difficulty in forging their characters. To face difficulties early in life, is I think very formative.”

Her opponents had spread the rumour that she was Mitterrand’s illegitimate daughter. She capitalised on this and became “François Mitterrand’s candidate”. Her campaign publicity stressed her closeness to the President and barely mentioned that she was a Socialist. At the same time, her opponent was, unfortunately for him but fortunately for Ségolène, suffering from domestic problems.

Mitterrand sent her the charismatic and popular Bernard Tapie to help the campaign. She handed out copies of her book Le Printemps des Grandparents to the voters and is supposed to have told them that if elected she would see that their children learnt English in schools so that they could sell their cheese in England. In a country constituency where many of the younger generation had left for the town, her book was a useful and appropriate calling card. She impressed everybody with her tremendous energy in making herself known in the constituency. Her opponent on this occasion, Pierre Billard, recalls “she’s really a one off, in election campaigns she’s extraordinary, everywhere at once.”

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In the first round of the election, Billard was leading and thought he was home and dry. He eased up on his campaigning. On the 12th of June, she won the seat with a small majority of 552 votes. In the same elections, François Hollande also won a seat in the Assembly in the Corrèze at Tulle. In 1996, she wrote in her book La Vérité d’Une Femme, rather oddly, “at that moment my thoughts were with my children and François Mitterrand”. At the time she commented, rather more practically that, “it has been a successful parachute landing” – reference to the French expression parachutage that describes the practice of giving provincial seats to bright young political hopefuls from headquarters in Paris. Some take and some do not. It is never easy. Ségolène had succeeded, even if it was close. The day of her victory, she was already on the television busy establishing her image in the constituency, with a strange statement about her father suggesting he had died when she was very young.

Backbencher

Ségolène started her career as a deputy with a bang. Within a few days of the beginning of the session she made her first speech in the chamber. It was about the right of women deputies with children to family life. Specifically, she asked for free travelling facilities for the children of deputies: “I discover with astonishment that deputies are supposed to go about their business without their children and that in this assembly there is neither a crèche nor a child-minding facility. I intend to reproduce the example of the crèche in the Elysée… a crèche where parents can come to feed their babies during the day.”

In a comment to the Libération newspaper she remarked with heavy sarcasm: “Deputies do not know what they’re missing in only knowing the bar.”

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The following year in an article in the Nouvel Observateur in November 1989, she returned to the attack: “Men are indifferent to the logistical problems of child upbringing. The mother of a family is not yet fully recognized in the world of work. As far as family policy is concerned no real progress has been made. This situation is unjust and ought to change. I intend to do something about it.”

Her first intervention that really caught the public eye was over the adjustment to summertime. It was a measure that had been introduced in 1975 by the very technocratic President Giscard d’Estaing. It was an excellent example of Ségolène making something out of nothing. Roger Fauroux, the Minister of Industry, ordered an enquiry to be made into the merits of the idea of moving the clock forward. The head of his private office, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, a friend of François and Ségolène, asked her to handle the task. “I thought I was giving her a technical question. She turned it into a debate about the state of society.” She told the National Assembly:

“To give the sun instructions from the government as to when it should rise and set ought to be impossible in the France of 1990 that has become allergic to arbitrary technocrats. If the present government had taken such an initiative what an uproar there would have been: ‘The Socialists are nationalising the sun!’ In the evening children don’t want go to bed because it’s light, which bothers the parents who need a bit of peace. Worse, all those children who today takes the school buses at six o’clock will be woken at four o’clock real-time in the midst of their deepest sleep and will leave in the cold and dark whereas a week before it was daylight.”

She continued:

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“The same applies for workers who start early at the factory. Tell me what time you get up and at what time you leave your work and I will tell you if you are a workman or a member of one of the professions. There is exasperation in the countryside where people have to adjust their day, and amongst the veterans, with the return to German time. The only people who will be satisfied are those who play tennis in the evening. Does France benefit from that?”

It was just the sort of issue that makes the reputation of a backbencher, combining as it did the concerns of children, workers, the family and the countryside against the wellheeled professionals and the bourgeois tennis players of this world. The rather xenophobic remark about German time was a reference to the German imposition of daylight saving on occupied France during the war. She finished her onslaught with a touch of ridicule and an attack on the television schedules of those days: “If we really want the French to get up earlier all we have to do is bring forward the television programmes! In most of Europe you don’t have to wait until eight o’clock to see the news.”

Behind these parliamentary fun and games there was a more serious political purpose. Ségolène knew the French people and she knew that although they had voted in a Socialist government they did not want their lives turned upside down. Her attack on the modernist clock adjusters was a reassuring cry in favour of tradition. It was also telling voters that she was one of them and understood their daily concerns.

In 1989, she published her second book, which was as unusual as her first. Le Ras-Le-Bol des Bébés Zappeurs is an attack on the contents of much of the television programmes of the time. It is blatantly anti-Japanese and anti-American, or, rather, anti the television programmes made in those countries. The title is

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not easy to translate neatly but means “the exasperation of the kids flicking through the programmes on television”. The book manages to link a call for more moral television programmes with an attack on money. Ségolène blames the influence of the profit motive in television for the deterioration in the quality of the programmes, although she carefully avoids calling for nationalisation of the popular private TV. It is again a work that was inspired by her time at the Elysée. The book calls on the programme schedulers to exercise restraint and for parents to be more particular in their use of what she describes as “that wonderful toy the television”.

Her principal target was violence. At one point she cites the number of offensive scenes on the French channel TF1 from midnight on Monday to midnight the next Sunday in one October week: 73 murders, 176 fights, four kidnappings, one attempted rape 22 explosions, three hostage-takings, four holdups, ten scenes of torture, 11 threats with revolvers, two suicides, one attempted suicide, two war films, one drug addict, five stripteases and three passionate love scenes. She spoke powerfully in a debate in the assembly, neatly avoiding accusations of prudery and censorship. She proposed an amendment to the law on broadcasting that would have restricted the worst scenes until after 11 o’clock at night: “I am not a prude and I do not have a prudish temperament either. I think that nothing is worse than censorship and it is absolutely not my idea to reestablish a moral order. But how can we close our eyes, how can we not see that enough is enough…how could we not see our television is becoming a dumping ground for American and Japanese series where violence competes only with vulgarity.”

She ended her speech to cross party applause with the words: “We who have known war and the Holocaust do not have the right to bring up the younger generation indifferent to violence.”

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As she wrote afterwards:

“Applause, but my amendment was rejected. Everybody agreed but it is never the right time… the image merchants did not suffer from nightmares on the evening of that debate. They still hold our bébé zappeurs captive and cling to their cash registers.”

It was a remarkable performance for a member who had only been in the assembly for six months.

Looking after the constituency

Her activities in the chamber brought her the beginnings of a national reputation. However, a wise backbencher looks after their constituency first and foremost. Ségolène used her links with the Elysée and the President remorselessly – particularly to further her pet project of restoring the waterways of the Marais Poitevin. François Mitterrand was already attached to the region. With his support she managed to get the motorway diverted to avoid the area. This, despite the opposition of all the Socialist mayors from the local towns. The works to restore the Marais waterways were upgraded to the status of grands travaux29 which meant easier and bigger subsidies. On the 4th of February 1992, François Mitterrand came to the village of Arcais to ceremonially inaugurate the work of renovating the landing stage, the first phase in 55 million francs worth of restoration. His speech on the occasion was apparently the first time that the familiar name “Ségolène” was used on a public occasion. Ségolène, now mayor of Melle, and the ageing President happily inaugurated proceedings by assisting in the hammering in of the first post in a new landing stage – and naturally it was all on national television. It had been Mitterrand’s idea to finance the building of a big centre celebrating the history of the Marais from the days of its construction by the monks in the 13th century. Ségolène

29

Major works.

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persuaded him that the best monument would be to restore the waterways to their original condition and that this would bring the most life to the area. As an acute politician Mitterrand accepted that her idea would spread the money provided evenly across the area and that there would be many photo opportunities, not just one big one. An association was set up to administer the new project – Le Syndicat de pays du Marais Poitevin – of which naturally she became the president. This arrangement neatly made sure that all the money came to her constituency and none to the regional Park under the control of her political opponents. At the same time as oiling the financial wheels of the local economy by protecting the Marais from the new motorway and restoring it, she was forming an alliance with the local ecologists. In time her project would help to consolidate her reputation as an environmentalist nationally. In 1989 and September 1990 Ségolène accompanied the President on his visits to the region. The then president of the Poitou-Charente region, later to be Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, recalls that in the notifications of these journeys from the President’s office there was no mention of Ségolène Royal but, as he put it, she just tagged along. In 1989 when Mitterrand arrived by helicopter to plant a tree of liberty at Saint-Godent in the Vienne, there she was, waiting as he landed. France’s first woman prime minister, Edith Cresson, spotted her as the helicopter came in to land and remarked, surprised, “her again?”. To which the amused President replied, “she’s only a few kilometres from her constituency…” Ségolène scored another hit locally by seizing the limelight in her support of the application for the coveted title of Appellation d’Origine Controlée (AOC) for the local cheese made from goats milk, Le Chabichou. In 1992 she went so far as to appear at the annual presidential garden party at the Elysée, to which all deputies are automatically invited, wearing the traditional dress of a country girl from the Charente and carrying a basket full of the local goats cheese.

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This was to the considerable annoyance of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who was at that time president of the Région that had actually sponsored the original application. Jacques Chirac was amused and told him not to worry as he was operating on a higher plane than her. Little did either of them guess that she would take Raffarin’s region in 2004. On the debit side, Ségolène’s relations with her suppléant Jean-Pierre Marché, who had helped her win her seat, were never good. She seems to have been uncomfortable with the idea of anybody else having influence in the constituency. This was perhaps a wise instinct. After she became a minister in 1992, he then, as is the rule, sat in her place in the National Assembly. It seems that the dislike was mutual. She suspected that he planned to supplant her in the constituency and was angry when later he gave a job to the parliamentary aides who she had quarrelled with. He eventually split completely with her and the Socialist Party, sitting as an independent deputy in the Assembly.

Although she was a Catholic in a Protestant area, she quickly won friends locally when they realised that she had spent most of her childhood in the country in Lorraine and knew the difference between a toadstool and a mushroom. She claims, thanks to her mother, to be able to recognize 200 different varieties of the latter. Constituents could not fail to be impressed by her tremendous energy in dealing with constituency problems. There is a panel on the wall between the mairie and the school in the village of Sepvret near Melle headed, “Protestant pioneers in education”. There follows a quotation from Jan Amos Comenius, the 16th century Czech theologian: “Women are gifted with a lively intelligence and an aptitude for knowledge equal or even greater than our own. God intends that they shall fill, like us, the highest positions; governors of states, advisers to kings and princes, the profession of medicine and other arts useful to mankind.”

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He could have written it for Ségolène.

She worked hard and successfully to create a network of supporters across the constituency, as is confirmed by her growing share of the vote at general elections. Having won the seat by a slim margin of 558 votes in 1988, she went on to win with a majority of 53.4% in 1993. In the early days, however, her tenure was not secure and she has never stopped trying to consolidate her local power base. As late as 1998 she narrowly lost her seat on the departmental council. In 1989 she became a local councillor for Melle where she maintained her constituency office. Ever since she arrived in the constituency in 1988, Ségolène has never stopped electioneering, but mixed with political considerations is a genuine concern for her constituents. The mayor of the village of Arcais has said of her, “It’s the first time we had a deputy visiting the rural communes and taking an interest”. This has been combined with a unique blend of experience in central government that has made her an unrivalled exploiter of government money on their behalf. It was not just a matter of knowing which bit of the great central administration to attack for which project, but also her ruthless energy. Regardless of the party in power, she just kept nagging the minister until she got the money she wanted. One local man confesses “we began to conceive schemes which would qualify for the funds that we knew Ségolène had access to”. The concept of “justice for all and favours for my friends” is well known in local French politics. Ségolène proved a mistress of the art.

Her other great skill was communication. Seven years working in the shadow of François Mitterrand combined with a natural talent revealed that here too she was without equal. She was particularly adept at stealing the limelight from local authorities which very often initiated projects for which she got the credit. Every intervention however small was faithfully recorded in the two local papers: La Nouvelle République du Centre Ouest and the Centre Presse. Ségolène was everywhere, talking to everybody, especially the handicapped

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and children. Only the local notables were ignored, especially the big maize farmers. But they were few and the subject of considerable local jealousy anyway.

Her record as a backbench MP is not beyond criticism. In 2006, the number of tourists visiting the Marais Poitevin on which so much money and effort have been lavished was virtually the same as in 1992 when the project started. To which it is possible to reply that if the works had not been carried out the Marais would have fallen into irretrievable disrepair and there would have no tourists at all by now. Her success in promoting the Chabichou cheese was in fact stolen from other bodies that had been working on the scheme before she came on the scene. It has also been pointed out that the success she claims in keeping the cheese manufacturing industry going is merely a reflection of a national trend towards eating more goats cheese. The route du Chabichou has been criticised as just looking after the cheese farmers to get their votes. However, no-one is suggesting that other deputies would not have done exactly what she did and used their connections to benefit their constituents. She just did it better and got more attention from the media. Part of the criticism is motivated by jealousy that she has succeeded in promoting herself where others have failed. The constant need to bolster her position was emphasised when, in 1992, she was only just elected departmental councillor for La Mothe-Saint-Héray with a majority of 51%. The elections had not gone well for her party that year. Whilst this may have been a disappointment locally for her it was these elections that were to give her a chance to shine in government. She had now worked for and with François Mitterrand for 11 years. He consistently helped her in her early career but she repaid this by demonstrating her talent as a politician and her sound judgement as to what the real concerns of the electors were. At the age of 39 Ségolène got her first opportunity to show what she could do as a Minister. Once she was on the national stage she was never seriously

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threatened in her constituency again. Her victory against the tide of a right wing landslide was the best Socialist result in the country. In 1997 she won with a majority of 61.82%. She might have difficulties elsewhere but in the constituency she was now bulletproof. If all her activities had been just so much public relations as her detractors say, it is difficult to imagine her electorate supporting her in the way they have.

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4. Environment Minister A minister in a hurry

The results of the regional elections of 1992 left the Green party – les Verts – with a record 13% of the vote. It was a new phenomenon and President Mitterrand decided that Ségolène should be appointed Minister of the Environment to counter the threat. He knew that she had done well in a country constituency, had been brought up in the country and understood the issues. He respected her drive. He thought she was the person ideally suited to the task of neutralising the Green vote. It is precisely on issues like the environment that she had briefed him for years when no-one else in his entourage thought it was important. In 1986 she had kept him and Attali informed on the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl. Probably she had specifically warned him of the growing political danger of les Verts. Michel Charasse, a friend of Mitterrand and one-time Minister of the Budget, recalls the telephone conversation that he claims to have overheard in President Mitterrand’s office when he offered her the job. Ségolène replied to the offer, “But it is awkward for me to be a minister when François isn’t”, to which the President replied, “Yes, but I’m not going to have a husband and wife in the government.” “But we are not married!” “Absolutely,” replied the President, “but it comes to the same thing.”

Ségolène returns to the charge: “But it is unfair for François.” The President does not like being argued with. “Right, listen, I understand your feeling of injustice. There is a solution, but maybe it won’t suit you: I appoint François Hollande and not you.” “But that is not what I’m asking you for at all.” End of conversation. The President knew his woman. A student at Science Po at this time who was taught by François Hollande remembers meeting Ségolène and being

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struck by how very arrogant and sure of herself she was, but, as he says, “what do you expect of the rising young star of the National Assembly?”. The Quotidien de Paris talks of “someone with the quite sharp common sense of a country cousin, and the offhand air of an up-to-date lady bountiful.” She was only to be minister for just under a year but she piled in with all the same dynamic enthusiasm and intelligence that she had shown as a new backbencher. Fortune favours a prepared mind. Hers had been honed by seven years of hard work in the boiler room of the Elysée studying the problems that her new ministry presented. She was quickly on the television debating the issues and appropriating environmental issues for the government.

A flavour of her unique approach that explains why journalists listen to what she has to say emerged at her first ministerial press conference. The night before 39 spectators had been crushed to death at the Heysel stadium in Belgium. She said to the assembled journalists “After such a disaster I at first thought about cancelling this press conference. But I did not because I have very little time and it is necessary to act quickly”. The pace was tremendous. In less than a year she pushed through five new laws and initiated a series of new initiatives: the safe collection of used batteries, a day of silence on the television, a day without using the car, a scheme to promote attractive allotments, and a competition for the most attractive countryside. The President had good cause to be pleased with his protégé. Her first job was to put into effect the new law on the management of water resources that had been voted in just before she was appointed. This involved the application of new procedures to monitor the sources of water and the creation of an administrative structure in the Ministry and the regions to see that they were properly applied. She also worked on the international aspects of the problem.

Her first major piece of legislation was the law to protect people from noise. It was the first serious attempt to bring

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French legislation up to date since Napoleonic times. Previously there had been a variety of old laws, particularly against noise at night, and there was the general law of nuisance. The Loi Ségolène Royal, as it came to be known, was a serious attempt at codification.

Over the years the different types of mechanical device – aeroplanes, cars, machines and household appliances – making a noise had multiplied to a point where the existing law was no longer relevant to the problem of everyday living. Ségolène already knew from her research at the Elysée that 50% of the French population complained about noise nuisance and consequently 50% of complaints to the police were about noise. She said when putting forward her legislation: “It is not my ambition to apply to certain nuisances specific treatments, but to create a new noise framework, the necessary condition for better human and family relations.”

The law covered cafes, discotheques, leisure centres, building sites, exhaust pipes, musical instruments, lawn mowers and finally reintroduced the fund compensating those living near airports. Certain times of the day were set aside for use of noisy equipment – essentially working hours. Copies of the new noise regulations were made available to the public in every prefecture and mayors were given the right to strengthen noise regulations but not weaken them. It was an extremely popular measure and when it came before the National Assembly, instead of deputies watering down the proposals, as often happens, they toughened them up. The legislation had originally contained no specific decibel limit – deputies inserted 60 dB as the reasonable noise limit.

Ségolène also introduced a measure to eliminate many of the open rubbish tips in the country over a period of 10 years and replaced them with treatment centres and recycling plants. A soil pollution tax was introduced. Her predecessor in the Ministry was somewhat irritated that she was only

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resuscitating a law that he had decided on the previous year – “to announce something which was decided on a year before as a new measure is to treat people like idiots,” he said. Ségolène couldn’t have cared less. The point was it was her that put it into effect and dramatised the need for it. At the time public opinion needed convincing that there was a problem. She went to Brussels and at a meeting of Environment Ministers of the European Union vigorously opposed the idea of free trade in rubbish as if it was just any other commodity. She has written of the experience of finding hidden away in the agenda a community regulation creating a free market in refuse. Not only did she find herself isolated, being the only one to object, but the papers she had from her officials gave no indication of it being against French interests. Nevertheless, without consulting Paris, she imposed the French veto and stopped the scheme. She eventually gained the support of Germany, Britain and Belgium for her position.

Quick response tactics

Her instant response and her political technique were abundantly illustrated by the affair of the German medical waste. Whilst she was on holiday in August 1992, a story broke in the media that German hospital waste was being imported into France and dumped in a waste disposal site in the Champagne-Ardennes region. Lurid pictures of piles of bloody syringes appeared on television. Without hesitation she interrupted her holidays, to the great satisfaction of the press. France Dimanche reported: “That didn’t take long. As soon as Madame Ségolène Royal, Minister of the Environment, learned of this trade she intervened. In a few hours she succeeded in ending the odious invasion of German refuse.”

The Parisien talked of “super Ségolène” locking up the dealers in bloodstained used needles. “Let us say it out loud, France does not want to be the dustbin of Europe.” Ségolène met her

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German opposite number, Klaus Topfer, only six days after the scandal broke and signed an agreement ending the trade in rubbish between the two countries. She also took a stand against the dumping of toxic rubbish in third world countries. As with all practitioners of the instant response, mistakes are inevitable and this was one of them. It did not emerge until several years later that in fact the bloody syringes shown on television were library footage of other medical waste. The imported waste syringes were not even in the same category as those shown in the news item. But the importers had still spent several weeks in prison under investigation. Ségolène did not seem unduly concerned. The important thing for her was that she had very publicly established the principle that each country should deal with its own waste.

It is instructive to see how she dealt with being accused of the mistake on national media. Questioned on television about the syringe incident in 1995 by the media analyst Daniel Schneidermann, she first made a concession – “Perhaps the press were a little arbitrary,” then went on the counter attack: “But at the same time the accused importers were caught in the circumstances that we know of. Who knows if a few years ago they were not taking part in other activities and that they were not caught? So let us give them the benefit of the doubt, let us respect the decision of the court but at the same time for these two who have been found innocent how many are there who have not been caught? It is unfortunate for them if they had done nothing. Even if in exercising that trade there is always a doubt.

At the time, the affair caused a shock because one had the impression of being submerged in rubbish. Without doubt the power of the pictures, the way the syringes were filmed close-up – one had the impression that France was submerged. As the Minister of the Environment I asked myself: when is it going to stop?”

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This justification boils down to “tough, but I stopped the trade and they were probably guilty anyway. And it was the fault of the press and the television for confusing me.” As one of her old friends has commented “it is not the presumption of innocence that keeps Ségolène awake at nights”.

She was less fortunate in banning Australian PCB waste, known as pyralene in France, from entering the country. In the autumn of 1992, Greenpeace intercepted a vessel loaded with PCB which was due to be recycled by a French company. Ségolène contacted the Australian environment minister and asked him to take the ship back or at least guarantee that it would be the last load to come to France. She found herself in conflict with her colleague in the Ministry of Industry and the matter came before the prime minister for decision. Bearing in mind the recent Rio Summit, Ségolène proposed that to protect employment the French company should be given the job of clearing up the 70,000 transformers made from pyralene currently in France then stored in insecure conditions but that the long-distance importation should cease. The prime minister accepted her proposal.

Ségolène duly informed her Australian counterpart and issued a press release. An hour later reports appeared in the press that the prime minister’s office had disowned her. The press were full of it. If the affair of the German medical waste was a triumph, this was humiliation. It is perhaps not surprising at this time that she recalls a phone call from her office early one morning advising her not to come in that day because angry refuse contractors had dumped skip loads of garbage all over the entrance to the Ministry. If there is a French rubbish lobby, she had definitely upset it. Ségolène says of this strange reversal that maybe someone highly placed in the minister’s private office was influenced by an industrialist. The minister in question was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, upon whose person she would avenge herself fourteen years later in the Socialist primaries. One of her more savage remarks in his direction indicates what she really

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thought of him, and also that she has not forgotten the episode. Talking about DSK’s involvement in another shady affair she remarked “in politics you should help people, not help yourself”.

Earth Mother at the Earth Summit

What most caught the attention of the media during this time was her visit to the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992. When she was appointed to the Ministry of the Environment she had already been pregnant for a month. She recalls that she did not tell Prime Minister Bérégovoy because she says he would not have appointed her. It is interesting that she does not say that François Mitterrand would have changed his mind, which would have been more relevant, as it was he who called the shots and had originally urged her appointment. By the time she was to fly to Rio she had only one month to go before she was due to give birth. She was determined to go but was accompanied by a military doctor and arranged for an ambulance to be waiting in case. She was also accompanied by Commandant Jacques Cousteau, the very telegenic and popular underwater film maker. All this activity during her pregnancy is astonishing, as is the neatness with which she drew attention to the fact that women can have children and do an important job, whilst also talking about the job in hand. The feminist angle was implicit in everything she did.

Shortly after her return from the Rio Summit on the 1st July 1992, she gave birth to her last child Flora. It was a considerable media event and in France has attracted some controversy. Not everyone approved of a minister playing to the gallery when she had a baby. Pictures that appeared in Paris Match of her with her baby not long afterwards were regarded as particularly daring. Ségolène was the first person in France to have had a baby whilst holding ministerial office. She thinks it was justified on the grounds that it again demonstrates that a mother can have a job and children. More recently she has been photographed in Paris Match with Flora

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having lunch. This provoked a negative reaction from her companion François Holland who has never been comfortable involving their children in political publicity.

Ségolène was Minister for only 11 months, but in that time she became one of the three most popular Socialists in France, according to the opinion polls. Since then the other two have changed regularly but she has always retained her place in the top three. And this despite the fact that her time as Minister of the Environment was the high point of her national political career. As we shall see it was the only time she was appointed to be a full Minister. It was the end of a phase in her life when everything she touched turned to political gold. The defeat of the Socialists in the parliamentary elections of 1993 meant that it was the end of her collaboration with François Mitterrand in politics. There is no doubt that without his support she would never have achieved what she did. On the other hand, her success in her constituency, as a minister and in the country as a whole show that the veteran politician Mitterrand knew what he was doing when he backed her. After leaving office in 1993 Ségolène was to discover how tough politics can be when you do not have a powerful backer.

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5. First Defeats and Opposition “We will be back”

The parliamentary elections of 1993 saw a big swing in favour of Jacques Chirac’s RPR and its allies. Paradoxically whilst it was a great shock for the Socialist Party it showed Ségolène in a good light. Her high-profile conduct on environmental matters and her constant care for her constituency made sure that she was one of the few to survive the anti-Socialist landslide. In fact she achieved the best result of any Socialist in the country when many ministers lost their seats. She won further respect from the President and party activists as the results came in.

Whereas many leading figures in the government hid from the cameras, Ségolène went from studio to studio to defend the government’s record. Of particular interest was a high-profile clash between her and Nicolas Sarkozy for the new right of centre government on national television. Ségolène accused the incoming government of all sorts of terrible intentions, particularly placing their candidates in all the key political jobs. Sarkozy firmly, not rudely, pointed out that the new government had not even been appointed so it was a bit early to attack it. He then went on to say, not without reason, that what she was accusing the new government of, without any justification, was precisely what François Mitterrand had been doing, to a far greater extent than any previous government. Just at the end of his entirely reasonably remarks he said that she was preaching hate. This was a mistake. Ségolène listened throughout very quietly, but when he used the word “hate” leapt in and furiously attacked him for bullying and being an example of the RPR steamroller. She implicitly jusified Mitterrand’s jobs for the boys policy by saying that the right controlled everything, including business and even the media. In effect she created a scene to distract

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attention from her unjust accusation. Having completely derailed the debate she went on to say prophetically: “We will rebuild. A change of government is not a drama. We will be back.”

When Sarkozy tried to reply to her outrageous misrepresentation, she immediately appealed to the presenter to stop him because he had already had his say, and Sarkozy was prevented from replying. So much for the new government’s control of the media!

The President must have been proud of her. It was a skilful, courageous and ruthless performance. Nicolas Sarkozy was already one of the finest debaters in French politics. He was not defeated on this occasion, but he was nicely outmanoeuvred. Ségolène also demonstrated great judgement and courage in talking of a better future even as the Socialist government suffered a crushing defeat. She listened to President Mitterrand’s last speech to a Socialist cabinet and received it as if it was his political last will and testament. “We are going to fight with our backs to the wall. Persevere!” was the message from the dying President. He had been suffering from cancer of the prostate, which was now advanced. Whereas in the past he had taken press conferences standing up, now he took them sitting down. Nicolas Sarkozy, who was a minister under him in this his last cohabitation, has left a moving and respectful picture of his tough old enemy who refused to shorten meetings of the Council of Ministers despite the great pain he was obviously suffering. It is important to register the scale of the defeat suffered by the Socialist Party at this point. They were reduced from 257 to 63 deputies, and many ministers had lost their seats. Amongst the casualties was Ségolène’s companion François Hollande. It cast a shadow over the last two years of Mitterrand’s reign. Unlike the first cohabitation, François Mitterrand was in no position to undermine the new government. There was no chance of him standing for a third

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term and there was no-one of his stature to replace him. Things looked pretty bleak for the Socialists and at the time it would have taken more than Ségolène’s blind faith to imagine that in only four years they would be back in power.

She was now 40 years old and opposition was no fun for someone who had known only power and success since entering politics. Nevertheless she makes it plain in her book published in 1996 that the defeat came as no surprise to her. She recalls a meeting a month before the elections in the office of Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy in which she finally told him point blank that the electorate “don’t want us any more”. She gives her reasons: “The wear and tear of exercising power, abandoned commitments, the mixing up of the identities of the two main parties, the absence of new ideas, the feeling that there is just as much inequality as before, and unemployment that has blotted out everything else the government had achieved.”

She went on to cite the inevitability of the swing of the pendulum in politics.

She says that she did not tell the Prime Minister that maintaining a strong currency was not a political programme. Bérégovoy had devoted most of his energies as Prime Minister to keeping the Franc strong so as to enable France to enter the EU’s Economic and Monetary Union smoothly. Not for the last time, European policy had proved expensive for a member government. What she is not prepared to recognize is that the electorate were tired of the sleaze-ridden Mitterrand presidency that she claims to admire so much. Paradoxically again, it is precisely this factor that was to enable the Socialists under Lionel Jospin to recover so quickly. Once Mitterrand had left office in 1995 and died in 1996, the party was freed of a great political liability. However much an asset he may have been in the past he did his party a favour by quitting the scene so quickly.

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Stuck on the sidelines

Completely unshaken by the big defeat her party had suffered, Ségolène went straight into action in an attempt to become the leader of the Socialist Party in the National Assembly. On the basis of her dramatic rise to prominence as a young minister and her excellent performance in her constituency, she felt she should lead her fellow deputies. However ex-Prime Minister Laurent Fabius wanted one of his stalwarts in the job and pushed the candidature of Martin Malvy, who was successful against her. It is also likely that Ségolène’s tough go-it-alone attitude to politics had made enemies for her. After failing to get the job as leader of the deputies she tried for the post of spokesman and this time fell foul of another leading Socialist, Henri Emmanuelli, first Secretary of the Party, with whom she had a considerable row. He then proposed her as President of the Socialist National Council, a 200-strong body representative of the members of the party.

Ségolène was called to the Paris bar in May 1994. Being a deputy she did not have to pass the exams. She operated from the chambers of her friend and lawyer Jean-Pierre Mignard. She did not get deeply involved as a legal practitioner although her name appears jointly pleading in the occasional very political case. There is no doubt at this time that she missed being in government. She had come so far so fast. It was deeply frustrating to be stuck on the sidelines. Her companion François Hollande considered leaving politics altogether.

Jacques Delors

After the heavy defeat of the Socialist Party in the European elections in 1994, Ségolène and François both campaigned to get Jacques Delors nominated as a candidate for the coming presidential elections. He was well ahead in the opinion polls. He had been the minister of finance under François Mitterrand from 1981 to 1984, and was then a prime contender for the role of Prime Minister – but the job went to Laurent Fabius.

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From 1985 to 1994 he was President of the European Commission. In Brussels he was a notable success leading Europe to set up the procedure that lead to the creation of the Euro and the Single European Act in 1986. No President of the Commission has matched him for efficiency and prestige since. Would-be supporters formed the Club Témoin, of which François was the president, to promote Delors’s candidacy and although his supporters were ready to split with the discredited Socialist Party to promote his chances, in the end he decided not to stand, announcing his decision on television in December 1994. For Ségolène this was a great disappointment. She said of it, “his decision not to stand was a cruel disappointment. I would not call it treason: there was a certain nobility in the decision, the sign of great honesty”. She has quoted with approval the comment of François Mitterrand: “Jacques Delors would have liked to have been President but he did not want to be candidate.”

It is after this that she began to think in terms of herself as a presidential candidate. Since no one else would represent the type of Socialism that she wanted, like Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, she decided she would do the job herself. The battle for role of candidate in the absence of Delors was now between Henri Emmanuelli and Lionel Jospin. To avoid choosing between the two she resigned as President of the National Council. Her comments on national television that the coming clash between the two heavyweights would be like two trains colliding with one another and that sensible party activists should get out of the way shocked some members. It was criticised as a display of inexperience but in the light of her new ambitions was much more likely to have been a calculated attempt to damage both of them. Whether it damaged Jospin, the eventual candidate, or not, he went on to lose the presidential election with 47.31% of the vote against Jacques Chirac. In the meantime Ségolène had made two powerful new enemies.

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Not single spies, but in battalions

As part of her constant drive to secure her political base in the Deux Sèvres in 1995, Ségolène sought to get herself elected as the mayor of Niort. The sitting mayor, Bernard Bellec, was under pressure, having lost his seat as representative for Poitiers in the National Assembly in 1993. Ségolène, who presided over the national selection committee for the area in Paris, had herself nominated. However Bellec refused to give way to her. To solve the problem she proposed one list, which she would lead, and that he should become her first assistant. Bellec regarded this as an insult. It should be borne in mind that, between the Socialists of the Deux Sèvres and its capital Niort, all was not comradely love. The Niortais considered that their country cousins were a little unsophisticated, and the members of the Party from the small towns and villages thought the Niortais were more than a little pretentious. When the elections took place there were thus two Socialist lists, which created the obvious danger of them both being defeated by the right. Fortunately for the Socialists that did not happen and the first round positioned the two lists within a few votes of each other, with Ségolène in front. Normally, when you have two competing candidates from the same party, the one with the least support withdraws. However there was now so much ill feeling that Bellec refused to withdraw. The result was that he won and Ségolène was beaten into third place. It was Ségolène’s first important personal political defeat and a considerable slap in the face. Also at this time, the newly-elected President Chirac announced the holding of the nuclear tests, abandoned by his predecessor François Mitterrand in 1991. This provoked furious opposition from the entire anti-nuclear community. Greenpeace sent their new Rainbow Warrior to disrupt the tests on Mururoa in French Polynesia. Ségolène decided to join the demonstrators but her family’s military prowess came back to haunt her. She was tipped off by a source at the Ministry of Defence that her presence would not be advisable. It was

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discretely explained to her that one of the leaders of the group of commandos that had blown up the original Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour was her elder brother Gérard, then a Lieutenant in the French secret service.

At this low point in her career she must have been well aware of Jacques Chirac’s famous dictum about political life – en politique les merdes volent en escadrille – a popular French version of Shakespeare’s rather grander, “When troubles come, they come not single spies but in battalions”.

Back to books

During this period she took refuge in what had become her trademark second occupation – that of author – by writing two books. Her type of writing generated regular invitations to appear on television, often on more general non-political programmes. The first book, Pays, Paysans, Paysages, in 1993, is a recapitulation of her work as Minister of the Environment and her approach to environmental problems.

The second, La Vérité d’Une Femme, in 1996, was written after Jacques Delors’ decision not to run for president and is a much wider look at French politics and partly autobiographical. Many of the conclusions she draws are echoed in the “100 Projects” announced in her presidential campaign.

It is interesting, too, to read her “12 Commandments for a Deputy”, reproduced overleaf. She has been subjected to more than a little mockery for these, firstly for plagiarising them, and secondly for not complying with them herself.

The affair of the three assistants

One instance of her ignoring her own advice and displaying all her characteristic stubbornness occurred in May 1997 when the National Assembly was dissolved. Her three Parliamentary

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12 Commandments for a Deputy

• Do not always think you are right. To be elected gives a certain legitimacy but not universal competence. • Do not tie your personal life to your political career. You should remain a free man or woman.

• Do not be afraid to say no. Individual interests have to give way to the general interest. • Don’t expect gratitude; just do your duty.

• Take the time to have people in and listen to them. Do not forget that power isolates and is exhausting.

• Do not think you are indispensable. Take your work seriously but keep your sense of humour. • Do not be afraid to risk losing an election because you believe in something. You have to keep your self respect.

• Control your victories and overcome your defeats otherwise you will very quickly become intolerable. • Keep your word. Trust is the best cement for your team. • Only support a scheme if it’s good for everybody. Avoid partiality.

• Respect your political opponents. Listen to their ideas and seek to raise the level of the debate.

• You are an elected representative and a citizen like everyone else. Behave like an ordinary citizen without seeking to take advantage of your position. From La Vérité d’Une Femme, Stock Paris 1996

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assistants were, as is the rule, dismissed and given two months notice, which they were not asked to serve. They left immediately with two months salary. Ségolène re-employed them on a short-term contract to work with her in her campaign to win re-election, which she did in June. As she became a minister with the incoming Socialist government she had no need of assistants, being provided with staff by the Ministry. She therefore released them to work for her suppléant, Jean-Pierre Marché. He, however, did not start paying them until July when he took up his place in the National Assembly. The three assistants were not paid any of the money normally due to them from Ségolène under the short-term contract for the duration of the 1997 electoral campaign. Nor were they given back pay by Marché. They insisted that they had worked without a break for Ségolène. She flatly refused to pay them, saying that as they had had two months termination pay which they had not had to work for they would, in effect, be being paid twice. Using an old French expression, her barrister, the ever-faithful Jean-Pierre Mignard, told the local press “they cannot have the butter and the money for the butter” – or their cake and eat it.

The three assistants then pursued the new minister in the employment tribunal – le Conseil des Prudhons – which ordered that they be paid their salaries for the period of the election campaign in May, but not for the period of June, because it was not proved that they had worked with Ségolène during that period. The affair continued with an appeal by the three assistants to which they added a complaint for employment on the black market! The minister replied with a complaint for criminal slander. This had the effect of stopping the civil proceedings, which were continued in 2005 with an application to the Court of Appeal. The case is now due to be heard in the middle of the presidential election campaign in the Court of Appeal at Rennes. On top of that, one of the plaintiffs has written a book

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about the time when they worked together, naturally in the most unflattering terms, particularly with regard to Ségolène’s meanness. No doubt, whatever the result Ségolène and her supporters will say it is all a conspiracy by Sarkozy’s UMP and the judges. True, Evelyne Pathouot, who wrote the book, now works for two UMP deputies, ironically in Ségolène’s home department of the Vosges, but the case started when Pathouot was working for Ségolène’s disaffected suppléant Jean-Pierre Marché, who later left the Socialist Party and sat in the National Assembly as an independent Socialist. It is probably no accident that this affair comes to court just as the nation votes. In France litigation has a habit of popping up just when it is most damaging to some public figure and many French people will not be inclined to accept that it is a coincidence and so will ignore it. Even so it is a curious affair and one would have thought that a minister and a rising politician would have been better advised simply to pay the money and be done with it.

There is an echo in this affair of the litigation against Ségolène’s father. As he has been dead for 25 years no-one has ever heard his side of the story. It has always been portrayed as a victory for the 18-year-old Ségolène, her mother and her student brothers, which saved them from penury. However, the case lasted from 1971 until 1980 with legal papers served by bailiffs and recorded delivery letters flying backwards and forwards. By the time the case was decided, the youngest child was 22 years old. Therefore it could not have helped improve the financial lot of the children as students at all, or at least not until the very last moment. By then Ségolène’s mother Hélène Royal was established in her inherited house by the sea at Villers-sur-Mer in the Calvados. It is reasonable to wonder whether it was not something of a pyrrhic victory over a man dying of cancer. Ségolène always refused to talk to her father after the separation. Perhaps if she had, the quarrel could have been settled in half the time with half the unpleasantness and presumably lower legal costs.

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The present case in which Ségolène finds herself embroiled is unlikely to persuade anyone in France to vote differently because each side will believe what they want to believe, but common sense says she could do without it now. Furthermore, Ségolène does have a reputation for being tight about money. When she and her companion were both elected together to the French National Assembly she is alleged to have tried to persuade the administration that she should be paid an extra allowance as François’ research assistant and vice versa! Not surprisingly, the answer was no. It is interesting that she should even ask.

The disagreement with her suppléant Marché led her, whilst Minister for Schools, to re-establish her office in the constituency at Melle. She paid the rent for the office herself and established three secretaries there. The problem was that the secretaries’ salaries were paid by the Department of Education through her private office in Paris. The matter found its way into the pages of the newspaper France Soir, probably with the help of the teachers unions, then in dispute with the government. In addition, it emerged that she had found jobs for her closest associates in the Ministry in Paris. With typical stubbornness, Ségolène refused to give way and justified her decision. “The existence of this secretariat is justified by the voluminous correspondence which is addressed to me in the constituency not only by constituents but also from all over France. Individuals traditionally send letters to ministers in their constituencies as much as at their ministry.”

It was a thoroughly Mitterrandian way of looking at the use of public money.

In the end the outcry was such that under pressure from Prime Minister Jospin, the secretaries went back to Paris and the retinue were found other less controversial perches. To put things in perspective, Ségolène was not the only politician to blur the line between public and private resources at this time.

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François Hollande becomes leader of the Socialist Party

Whilst Ségolène was going through a difficult patch, her companion François, who had lost his seat in 1993, began to come into his own. With the departure of Jacques Delors he moved closer to Lionel Jospin, then Secretary-General of the party, and was one of his spokesmen in the presidential elections of 1995. With the Socialist win in 1997 he regained his seat and, more importantly, when Jospin became Prime Minister he took over as Secretary-General of the party in his stead. It is a post he still holds today. It was also to be vital in helping to keep Ségolène in the political running. While François was creating a new role for himself administering the party, Ségolène’s political career had hit its lowest point, but the recovery began suddenly and unexpectedly with the defeat of Chirac’s Juppé government in an early general election. It is generally supposed that by calling early elections Chirac miscalculated, thinking he would get a better majority for another five years, but it is equally plausible that the devious President was aware that another election would have to be held in 2002 just before the next Presidential elections. He may well have gambled on the by now established tendency of the French electorate to throw out the government at every election. On this basis he would be able to count on a new majority to see him nicely through his next mandate. Whether Chirac blundered or deliberately risked the defeat of his own party for his own benefit, the result was that the Socialist Party was back in office for another five years.

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6. A Disappointing Victory: Education and the Family Confrontation with Jospin

Chirac’s defeat at the early parliamentary elections of 1997 brought to an end a period of frustrating inaction for Ségolène. It also brought disappointment. With the departure of both Mitterrand and Delors, she was now without any political protector – in 1995 she had quarreled with Lionel Jospin, who was now in an unexpectedly commanding position. She had supported him during the elections with a fairly obvious lack of enthusiasm. Not surprisingly he had no plans to improve her political CV as she had made plain her not-so-long-term ambitions to stand for the presidency. He had no place for her in his government.

Furthermore, Ségolène’s tough, independent attitude had caused a certain amount of resentment amongst some of her colleagues. Her amazing ability to attract publicity provoked jealousy. Jospin disapproved of much about the Mitterrand era and he regarded Ségolène’s independent mindedness and silky communication skills with particular suspicion. After the crushing defeat of 1993, and Mitterrand’s death in 1996, he had talked of the droit à l’inventaire – the right to examine critically the record of the former President. Ségolène and François Hollande, amongst others, disagreed violently. It was a further area of conflict. When Ségolène discovered Jospin’s plan to leave her out of the government, her counter attack was typically vigorous and incisive. Before the elections, Jospin had agreed to give Laurent Fabius the prestigious post of President of National Assembly in exchange for his support in the campaign. Ségolène decided to upset this cosy arrangement and stand against Fabius to be President of the Assembly. “It was a clever move on her part,” says deputy Marie-Noëlle Liennemann, “as

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they did not want her in the government, she opted for a trial of strength. She didn’t lose her nerve and she didn’t give way”.

The meeting of the party’s national committee turned into a confrontation between Lionel Jospin and Ségolène. Jospin was faced with a messy split in his party on day one of the new parliament. He had promised Fabius a dignified ascension to the perchoir, as it is known. An intra-party battle in the Assembly with an uncertain outcome was not part of the plan. Fabius stoutly maintained he had no fear of the result if it came to a vote.

The problem was resolved by none other than François Hollande, as Secretary-General of the Party, who negotiated a deal. Ségolène would withdraw in exchange for a place in the government. The quarrel demonstrated for the first time that Ségolène had the political ability and the nerve to hold her own without a senior member of the government to push her cause. It also demonstrated that she had a powerful new political ally in her companion, François Hollande.

Supermum

Ségolène has always maintained that one of her aims was to make the feminist point that it is possible to be a mother and have a top job as well. But it is questionable whether she really succeeds in her aim. She says today that her children have “turned out well”, and there is no reason to doubt it. However, it is reasonable to wonder what point she has really made. When precisely did she look after her children herself as she dashed about France on her political duties? She has staff and there are two grandmothers. With enormous success, she portrays herself as a supermum, and as the politician who cares about family matters because, having four children, she knows about them. Nevertheless she is almost endearing in her slightly embarrassed accounts of how she coped. Asked by Gala magazine in 1997 whether she checks that her children have done their homework, she replied, “Yes, very attentively. I get them to recite their homework in the

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morning”. A cruel cross-examiner might ask whether this takes place at six o’clock in the morning or eleven o’clock at night?

Asked if her children ever felt neglected, she answers that she has worked out little tricks to ensure this does not happen, using a photo of all the family for them to look at at night. Nanny always talks about the parents every night before the children go to sleep! Slightly shamefacedly she told Le Figaro in 2002 that her children “educate each other”.

Realistically, her fellow deputy Marie-Noëlle Leinemann comments, “Ségolène as a mother is more a point of reference than a presence”. Ségolène has said herself, “When I am at the Ministry I think of my children, and when I am with my children I think of the Ministry”. It would be heart-rending, were it not for her ever-growing popularity with ordinary people, who are probably not fooled but nevertheless admire her for somehow coping with both roles, aware that she is genuinely the victim of the same pressures that afflict all working mothers. It is just a question of degree.

Junior minister for secondary education

As noted, Jospin had, with bad grace, agreed to give Ségolène a job in his new government. He did the minimum and made her junior minister for enseignement scolaire (teaching and schools) under his close friend and associate Claude Allègre, who was appointed education minister. To be a ministre délégué30, or junior minister, after being a full minister in 1993, was a severe disappointment, and colleagues recall that Ségolène was bitter about it.

However, it had an unexpected advantage. She was prevented from taking a leading position in the Jospin government that her public prominence entitled her to, and so, when in the 2002 presidential elections Jospin was routed at the polls by Chirac – and, worse still, Front national leader Jean-Marie Le Pen – Ministre délégués excercise authority only in those areas delegated to them by the Minister responsible for the department.

30

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Ségolène was largely unaffected. Nor was she associated with the negative impact of the highly controversial introduction of the 35-hour week. She retained her “new” image and avoided the slightly shop-soiled impression given by those who had been chosen ahead of her. Criticism today that she lacks senior experience as a minister in her role as presidential candidate overlooks the fact that she was deliberately held back at this point in her career. If the electorally inept Jospin had known what he was doing, she would have been in the forefront of the battle. Instead he was to place her not only junior to two other women candidates, Martine Aubry and Elizabeth Guigou, but actually subordinate to them in the Ministère de la Famille. Both have since faded from the forefront of the national scene.

Claude Allègre – a clash of characters

Although it was an area in which she had taken an interest whilst at the Elysée, her time at the Ministry of Education was not agreeable. Neither Ségolène nor Claude Allègre are easy characters to deal with. Ségolène had been sent to the Ministry because Allègre was not keen to deal with schools and wanted to concentrate on research and higher education. Allègre is an internationally known scientist. Ségolène is no respecter of persons. The fact that their offices were in different buildings did not make things any easier. Ségolène turned up late for her first meeting with the minister for the handover ceremony with the former minister François Bayrou. Allègre records that he commented, “I have lost Ségolène”, to which, allegedly, Bayrou replied, “This is just the beginning!”

Both Ségolène and Claude Allègre agreed on the principle that schools should be built round the child rather than the child fitting into the school. However, Ségolène complained afterwards, “He spent his time humiliating me. He even tried to take my office for one of his advisers.” Their weekly gettogether over lunch was not enough to iron out the clash of personalities. One was a technocrat determined to change the

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system; the other was an ambitious political star. Naturally their ways of handling things differed.

A further difficulty was that there were grey areas where it was not clear who was dealing with which sector. Senior officials sometimes received contrary instructions. On one occasion during a meeting with the trade unions concerning lycées31 and colleges the Minister delivered his speech about the lycées, handed the microphone to Ségolène and walked out of the meeting. “He has a lot of talent and he had good ideas but he should have remained a researcher or adviser to the Prime Minister,” she told Le Nouvel Observateur in 2005. Allègre who wanted Jospin as a presidential candidate, has not remained silent either. Referring to her suggestions of military training for delinquents and the confiscation of family allowances, he has said, “with the ideas that she is developing today, Ségolène Royal is in the process of splitting the party in two”.

The primacy of education

It would have been asking a lot for Ségolène not to push her own point of view and ways of doing things, given her strong views on education. She believes that the education system is the key structure in dealing with social problems. In 1996 she wrote: “For a lot of children, the school is the only place to learn the difference between good and evil and the principle according to which all our acts are in balance between liberty and its limits.”

Therefore she believed that the subject of education should be in the forefront of the presidential campaign: “We must put the school and the family at the centre of society. The parents must no longer be excluded from the school but associated closely with its life.”

She felt that Lionel Jospin had failed to create the necessary dialogue with pupils and parents when he was Minister of 31

Lycées deal with pupils from 16 to 18 and colleges from 11 to 16.

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Education in 1989 and that Claude Allègre did no better as her titular minister in 1997. She was therefore very frustrated in the job as his assistant. What she believes is necessary is, in effect, a return to old-fashioned teaching methods: “Teachers can no longer be satisfied with transmitting their knowledge. They must also adopt the role of organiser, tutor and dialogue with the children and their parents.”

Like Nicolas Sarkozy, she believes in the provision of facilities and supervision, so that children can do their homework at school rather than becoming latchkey children in the potentially dangerous period between the end of school and when their mothers get home from work. The elections were in June. By September she had launched her action programme, the most important aspect of which was the revitalisation of the ZEP system.

Zones d’éducation prioritaire was set up in 1981 at the beginning of President Mitterrand’s first mandate. Certain schools in disadvantaged urban areas received extra financial help, in particular special allowances for the staff. Ségolène increased these allowances and increased the number of schools benefiting from them. This meant that a further 16,600 teachers received extra pay. She also ordered that head teachers and assistant head teachers should be excused teaching, giving them more time for more general supervision of their schools. No doubt these measures went some way to calm teachers who were angry with her titular minister for making clear he wanted to shake up the ministry. In 1999, Ségolène caused some controversy by authorising schools and nurses to distribute the “morning after” contraceptive pill in colleges and lycées. This provoked considerable criticism in conservative and Catholic circles, and attracted a lot of publicity. It is also an interesting example of Ségolène’s determination to get her own way, in that she adopted a procedure that avoided having to pass legislation

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and thus consult other ministries. On a less controversial note, she initiated a scheme – Handiscol – to get as many handicapped children into ordinary schools as possible. She worked hard for more schooling facilities for young children from two upwards to ease them into education.

The politics of paedophilia

In particular she led a campaign against paedophile teachers and what she called “the law of silence”. She insisted that children who made allegations should be believed unless there was clear evidence to the contrary and that the judicial authorities should be informed. She also put an end to the practice of moving teachers suspected of molesting children to other areas where they often started all over again. A circular to the education authorities demanding that children’s accusations should be taken at face value led to the accusation that she encouraged children and parents to defame teachers and took the process of “believing the children” too far. She said of it herself: “If I had waited for the agreement of the trade unions the circular would never have gone out because they were against it. In some cases you have to have a great deal of determination to act in the face of vested interests and unwillingness to do anything.”

To this a trade union leader, Monique Vuaillat, replied,

“Mme Royal is lying. As far as the circular on sexual violence is concerned we discussed its contents in depth and she had the approval of the SNES and the FSU. A lie even when uttered by a representative of the government has never made a policy and is certainly not in accordance with the civic behaviour that one expects from the Ministry of Education.”

As is her practice, it seems that Ségolène wanted all the credit and put out the circular to ensure that she got it. Equally, it is

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not difficult to believe that she was more enthusiastic about the circular than the teachers’ unions.

However on such a serious subject as accusations of paedophilia there were graver issues at stake than the timing of a politician’s circular. An accusation of paedophilia, after all, is easily made and can have devastating consequences. And in this instance it did, when in June 1997 a teacher called Bernard Hanse was falsely accused of molesting a pupil and committed suicide. Her response: “It is sad but if our measures save three children…”

Worse still, when the thirteen year old child withdrew his accusation a month later, she made comments on prime time national television that were, to say the least, controversial: “The affair is not over. The child has perhaps withdrawn under pressure from adults, or the effect of a suicide or because he was criticized for having spoken out.” Note that her response is the same as in the case of the importers of medical waste. Journalist Michel Cotta has made a study of the effect of the circular and reports that 350 instances were revealed in the first month after it was issued, of which 300 were in primary schools. He comments, “Her position is clear: better to go too far than suffer the law of silence. Better one innocent teacher denounced them have 300 go undetected”.

She refused to meet the family of the dead teacher because when they arrived at the ministry the media were in attendance. She wrote a highly tendentious letter to the family immediately after the suicide justifying her position. It was not the finest hour of the great communicator. Furthermore, the ministerial circular setting out the procedure to be adopted in such cases on the subject was actually issued one month after the death of Bernard Hanse. It has been alleged that it was so framed to cover the way the case was handled. The child involved who admitted lying was eventually accused of false denunciation, but acquitted on the technical grounds that the allegations were actually made by his parents. After a long

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legal struggle Bernard Hanse was completely cleared in June 2002. The Hanse family claim that the Ministry of Education used its influence to hinder the investigation and the examination by the courts. They point out that, while the family of the child found to have lied had all their legal expenses paid by the state, they had to pay all their own costs. When the Outreau Affair32 broke after she had left office, there was a general realisation that things had gone too far in the direction of taking children’s words at face value. Eighteen innocent adults spent between one and three years in prison on evidence that was not only flimsy but plain silly. One of them committed suicide before being released.

Frustration – dealing with crumbs

Ségolène was at the Ministry of Education for three years but, not having overall charge, she was not able to put through all the changes that she wanted, particularly those limiting the size of colleges to 400 pupils. The ZEP system still leaves much to be desired. Nicolas Sarkozy has pointed out that few teachers who work in ZEP schools send their own children to them. He has also noted that the more experienced teachers tend to move on to other, better schools, leaving their younger and less experienced colleagues to cope in the most disadvantaged schools.

Not all educational staff appreciated her vigorous approach to problems. Her habit of visiting schools and colleges without warning was naturally disliked by senior officials of the education ministry. Since then, and particularly during the run up to the Socialist primaries, there has been plenty of comment on how awful she is to work for. Critics have noted that no less than half of her private office staff changed in that period. It seems undeniable that she is an abrasive boss who does not suffer fools gladly. She sought high standards and no doubt looked to create a team in her own image. 32

An infamous miscarriage of justice concerning an alleged network of paedophiles.

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Ségolène’s companion, François Hollande, was aware of the challenges she was facing and, as general secretary of the Socialist Party, was also aware that the teaching profession was its traditional backbone. To help both Party and partner, he encouraged her to work with a future Senator for the Ariège, Jean-Pierre Bel, who knew the local branches of the party well, and who helped her to set up a series of visits to the grass roots. Over three years she made regular trips to the regions on her ministerial duties and at the same time talked to regional party heads, many of whom were teachers, to reassure them that she meant them no ill will. Years later, he was one of those who contradicted the rumours that she had bad relations with her private office and knew little about the party. He remembers a team that respected their hard working boss. No doubt this period dedicated to maintaining good relations with regional party organisations stood her in good stead when she needed their votes for the party primaries in November 2006.

There were, in any event, others who approved of her feisty, no-nonsense approach at the Ministry of Education. JeanPierre Chevènement, then Minister of the Interior, who wanted to take a strong line on law and order, commented “she was not one of the bleeding hearts”. Whatever the level of support she enjoyed, the period was, for Ségolène somewhat unfulfilling. Journalists who accompanied her at this time have described a minister who was frustrated by her low government status which meant that, “she only got the crumbs that her minister left her”. They felt she tended to compensate for this with frenetic media activity that was not always related to real activity in the field. In other words, Jospin and his close associate deliberately kept her under-employed and she took it badly. There is a video of a ministerial press conference in March 1998 with the two ill-suited “colleagues” side by side. The tension in Ségolène is striking, and Claude Allègre next to her looks as if he is sitting on a pin. Another video records a news item in September 1997, only a few weeks after his appointment, in which Allègre’s ministerial style is described as “frank, direct or even brutal”. He is shown throwing union

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representatives out of a ministerial press conference with the words “they let anybody in here.” To a sophisticated communicator like Ségolène, this was obviously torture. She is shown commenting to camera after the press conference that the minister was lucky that the press treated him kindly because he was a well-known scientist outside politics. Her frustration was obvious.

Minister for the Family, Children and the Handicapped

In March 2000, there was a government reshuffle. Ségolène hoped either to take over the education ministry from Claude Allègre, who left the government, or become minister of culture or justice. With her rather gung-ho attitude to the presumption of innocence and the justice system, it is perhaps just as well for her and the French that it was not the latter. In any event, Prime Minister Jospin was still unfavourably disposed towards her and would only make her junior minister for the family. She said later that being appointed as minister for the family reinforced her [woman’s] image as a housewife. “It was a hard moment when Jospin offered it to me.” True, perhaps, but her comment could also be construed as an attempt to portray herself as victim of the wicked, macho prime minister. As it happens, it was not a bad appointment for Ségolène as it allowed her to play to her strengths. The ministry was something of a gimmick, with a very low budget – the Socialist manifesto of 1997 had hardly mentioned the family. Ségolène on the other hand believed that to champion the family could be a real plus for the party. It could be linked with issues of equality between the sexes and be the point of focus on the need for balance between liberty and responsibility. Despite her disappointment, as usual, Ségolène quickly got down to work. Every Thursday afternoon, in her far from prestigious offices in Avenue Briançon, she held meetings with

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sociologists, philosophers and lawyers and other professionals who came to talk to her about the family. She would sit in these meetings and take notes, records Irène Théry, Director of Research at EHESS33. It was during one of these sessions that she decided to reform the rules concerning anonymous childbirth, known as accouchement sous X.

A focus on issues outside the run of normal political debate

Throughout her career Ségolène has had a talent for spotting apparently minor issues that attract a lot of attention. It is not just political cynicism. The ability to understand what will attract attention comes from having an empathy with the concerns of ordinary people and knowing what is important to them. Giving birth anonymously is a facility provided under French law for those who wish to give their children up for adoption. It was a classic Ségolène Royal issue. There are only about a thousand cases a year and yet an enormous number of people are interested in the problem. Whereas in the past adopted children tended to accept that they would never know who their parents were, today they do not. Her companion, François Hollande, has commented: “You cannot imagine the number of people concerned by this hunt for their roots, either for themselves or for a friend or relative. In the street, on a train, people came up to Ségolène and thanked her.”

For a small ministry with no money it was almost the perfect issue. The solution to the problem was straightforward and only involved the setting up of a national council for access to personal origins. In addition, it could all be done without seeking the help of either her supervisory minister of social affairs, Elizabeth Guigou, or the prime minister, Lionel Jospin. EHESS – École des hautes études en sciences social. The top research establishment concerned with research into higher education and the social sciences.

33

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The subject intrigued both the media and the public; and again it was outside the normal run of political debate that interests relatively few members of the public for most of the time. A fellow Socialist deputy from Paris analysed the phenomenon: “As soon as she escapes from the political pages of the newspaper and gets on to those concerned with everyday news, what she does is noticed by the great masses of the people who are not interested in politics.”

She also attacked the problem of what is known as bizutage, which is the custom in many French academic establishments of making new students go through initiation ceremonies. It is a practice that, inevitably, lends itself to bullying and, although harmless for most people, it can be terrifying for those who are shy or from different social backgrounds to the general run of students. It was, for instance, the tradition amongst medical students to force the victim to open his or her mouth and throw in a warm oyster at the same time as making a suitably lurid spitting sound. Banning the practice ticked all the political boxes for Ségolène. It helped the weak. It irritated reactionaries and it got everybody talking...about her. Ségolène went so far as to make it a separate criminal offence. Shrewdly appreciating the peer group pressures involved, she framed the law to make it an offence even where the victim gave their consent.

Initiatives in support of the family

In January 2001, Ségolène published a document pulling together all the initiatives taken by her ministry in favour of the family. It is an impressively wide-ranging document and demonstrates the author’s ingenuity in seeking out useful measures to help the family, whilst at the same time making effective political points. Her belief in the need to support parents bringing up children for the good of the family and society is evident in the document. Amongst the many measures that were listed was the right of an employee to take time off work if a child of the family was seriously ill. This was supported by a grant that, to some extent, replaced lost 107

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income and gave financial assistance for parents getting back into work after a child’s illness. There was an improved housing allowance, an allowance to help fund the expenses at the beginning of each year, and a number of measures aimed at young adults like free medical insurance from the age of 16.

More effective measures were also taken to deal with the problem of child pornography and prostitution. A law was introduced making clients and parents of juvenile prostitutes criminally responsible. There was also a law against child pornography and practical steps were taken to trace the downloading of child pornography on the internet. Amongst the measures that Ségolène referred to with pride during the 2007 election campaign was the creation of 40,000 new places in crèches. Previously, annual growth in places had been 6,400 on average. She launched a programme of investment of 228 million euros over three years, doubling the rate of growth. As always with Ségolène, feminist issues were to the fore, and practical steps were taken to emphasise the equality of parents before the law. The establishment of paternity leave for fathers was motivated by the wish to make fathers more responsible and to ensure that mothers were not penalised professionally as the only ones to take time off when a child was born. It was also seen as a way of adapting to the modern world and breaking the convention of only the mother being confined to the house. Dominique Méda, a sociologist, said: “It is an important measure. In encouraging fathers to involve themselves very early on with the children, the parental leave scheme marks the beginning of the redistribution of the roles between fathers and mothers. It is a beginning in tackling the inequalities in the workplace between men and women which often have their roots in family life.”

Even where she highlighted problems that she could not solve, she attracted the sympathy of the general public. She

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campaigned against the appalling noise in school canteens, the ridiculously heavy satchels that French schoolchildren have to carry, and argued for better quality television.

By good luck, the second half of 2000 was a period when France held the presidency of the European Union and Ségolène presided over a meeting of ministers responsible for the family from member countries to compare experiences with different problems. There was also an extraordinary assembly of the United Nations dedicated to children in September 2001, where she was instrumental in making sure that France supported the campaigns against child soldiers, the international trade in child prostitution and pornography, and the worst forms of child labour.

Her already well-known views on the bad effect on children of violence on television were further developed at this time with the issue of a report by Serge Tisserand, a child psychiatrist, which showed that, “violence in pictures paved the way for violence in groups and violence in groups magnifies the violence in pictures”. She stressed the views of experts that violence on television had a direct effect on people with personality disorders that could in certain circumstances cause them to commit acts of violence themselves. Ségolène held meetings with the heads of the different television companies and with the president of their governing body, the Conseil National de l’Audiovisuel, and representatives of the press and radio, to draw their attention to their responsibilities.

In March 2001 she was made responsible for the handicapped. She dealt with her responsibilities by issuing a 12-point plan designed to implement the government’s proposals in this area, made just before she took over the department. Features included reinforcing the Handiscol proposals already made when she was at the Ministry of Education. The handicapped employment service, COTOREP, was also improved. Steps were taken to upgrade handicapped access to all types of buildings used by the public as well as public transport.

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The politics of media attention

All of this was a long way from the main political issues of the day: the economy, defence and international relations. But it was very close to the preoccupations of the majority of the population, and Ségolène was aware of this. From the three ministerial posts she held at environment, education and the family, only health and employment are missing of the key concerns of the average family.

The concerns of the average family are the concerns of the media, and Ségolène received constant exposure on television and in the press doing things that people cared about. Her opponents, enemies and rivals are very cynical about this, but the fundamental point is that it was not just communication for the sake of it. It was effective political action. For the first year of the two years that Ségolène was minister for the family, her titular minister was Martine Aubry, the daughter of Jacques Delors. This was another difficult situation, as Ségolène had held a higher rank in the Bérégovoy government under Mitterrand, nearly ten years before. Not surprisingly they did not always agree, particularly over the extension of the time limit for abortion from 10 to 12 weeks into pregnancy, which Ségolène proposed. However, in March 2001, Martine Aubry resigned to seek the position of mayor of Lille, leaving Ségolène with Francoise Guigou as minister and herself with a little more autonomy.

2002 – Parliamentary and Presidential elections

In 2002, the political calendar featured both parliamentary and presidential elections. In 1998 she had received a sharp reminder that no-one can be sure of re-election. At the time, she was a deputy and departmental councillor, and her seat as departmental councillor in La Mothe-Saint-Héray was up for re-election. In spite of the fact that she was a well-known minister and opposed by a political novice, Jean-Pierre Griffault, who was a district nurse, Ségolène was defeated.

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Narrowly, but still defeated. It is said that her idea of keeping the numbers up at the local school, to keep it open, by bringing problem children from other areas was not appreciated by the local inhabitants. Her opponent in the election later said that Ségolène lost due to her over-confidence. Whatever the reason, the defeat was a warning, and as a result she took good care not to neglect her constituency in 2002, despite ministerial preoccupations in Paris.

Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was humiliated in the presidential elections in April, being beaten not only by Chirac but also by the far right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The Socialist Party then found itself forced by its own rhetoric over the last 20 years to vote for a right-wing leader, Chirac, against his extreme right opponent in the second round. It was to some extent poetic justice, because over the years the Socialist Party had gone out of its way to demonise the Front national so as to keep the right divided and therefore easier to beat in elections. Faced with a run-off against the Front national that they had characterised as fascist and undemocratic, they had little choice but to support Chirac. It was a bitter moment. In the Parliamentary elections that followed in June, the Gaullist party, now known as the UMP, regained an overall majority in the National Assembly. However, in what many regard as a missed opportunity, Chirac did not appoint any Socialist ministers to his new government, despite the fact that they had contributed so strongly to his unheard-of 82% majority after his miserable 19.9% in the first round. So Ségolène was out of office again.

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7. Defeat into Victory: President of the Poitou-Charente Region Socialist Party – recovering from trauma

For the second time in five years, Ségolène found herself out of office and in opposition. Her ministerial career had got no further than it had been in 1993, nine years before. On the plus side, her position was still strong in her own constituency, despite her share of the vote falling from its peak of 61.8% in 1997. This reaffirmed her belief that the issues and policies that she had made her own were the key to future electoral success.

The main parties on both left and right were shocked by what had happened – Le Pen getting into the second round of the presidential election. The Socialists particularly took some time to recover their confidence. Not only were they demoralised but leaderless as well, because Lionel Jospin resigned immediately after his defeat and left politics (although he was to change his mind later). Not for the first time, Ségolène’s companion, François Hollande, found himself picking up the pieces for the party of which he was still Secretary-General. Hollande was a popular and by now tried and trusted leader. It would have been natural enough for him to become the heir apparent. However the opinion polls told a different and surprising story. It was Ségolène who was the public’s choice as the most popular Socialist to be the next candidate for the presidential elections, now that Lionel Jospin had left the way clear. One of the least senior of Jospin’s ministers was in pole position with the public and was to stay there until she became the official Socialist candidate in November 2006. After such an electoral shock it was no time for rash statements, still less actions, and Ségolène occupied herself with helping François Hollande keep the party united. Taking

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the cynical view, if she had already decided to run for the candidacy it was in her interests that the party should be in as good shape as possible. Cynicism apart, Ségolène and François have always helped each other whenever they could throughout very different careers. Whatever her motivation, there is no doubt that after being humiliated by the Front national, the leader of the Socialist Party needed help and support. Whilst she turned over in her mind her next move, Ségolène put all her considerable energy into holding the party steady.

The first real opportunity to attack the new government came in January 2003, when they began the overdue reform of the pensions system. This was a task that the Jospin government had noticeably avoided tackling. With the deterioration in the demographic balance between workers and pensioners, it had been obvious for a long time that changes had to be made to find more money and reduce outgoings. However the government was very careful to get the trade unions to agree to any changes and this, and the Jospin government’s failure to tackle the subject, made it difficult for the Socialist’s attack to do any real damage. Equally, most people felt that the changes being brought in were inevitable and that if Jospin’s government had had the courage to deal with these difficult decisions, they would have come up with very similar proposals. However difficult the target, Ségolène nevertheless went on television to attack the government for taking the money for reform from the wrong people and for being unjust. Unearned income should be taxed as well as capital, she said. Not just employment income. The load should be spread.

Campaign for President of the Poitou-Charente region

The crucial decision that Ségolène made in 2003 was to lead a campaign in her region, the Poitou-Charente, to get control

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of the Regional Council in the regional elections in March 2004. The government remained confident and strong, and was getting its measures through without too much difficulty. The Socialists were supported by the usual street demonstrations by the trade unions, but their rallying calls made little impression in the country.

The Poitou-Charente region was the personal fief of the prime minister and therefore difficult to overturn. Jean-Pierre Raffarin was not himself sitting as President of the region as his role in government precluded it. However if Ségolène could win the region “against” him it would be a coup that, with her instinct for publicity, she could exploit. In addition, she would have an administration that she could use to demonstrate her political ideas and use as a springboard for the Socialist primaries of 2006. Furthermore, if no other leading Socialist stood in the regional elections she would be unique. It was a finely-judged decision, a calculated gamble, because if she lost she would emerge diminished. She was supported in her decision by François Hollande, who alone amongst senior party figures believed that success was possible. Fortune allegedly favours the brave, and in this instance her gamble paid off. From October 2003 until the elections in March 2004 she held 250 meetings and allegedly lost 4 kilos in weight. In another of those electoral reversals which have become a specialty of the French voters, there was a significant swing to the Socialist Party. This was exaggerated by the new system that favours a clear-cut majority – ironically introduced by Jean-Pierre Raffarin – to avoid the problem of deadlocked councils. Ségolène headed the Socialist list in the PoitouCharente. Thus she became the President of the Region and was able to claim that she had defeated the prime minister, who had been the President of the region for a number of years. In reality at the time of her victory his place had been taken by Elizabeth Morin, a primary school teacher. Furthermore, it was not as if the region had never been in the

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hands of the left. Nevertheless it was a great coup. Ségolène for the first time in her 23-year political life found herself with real independent executive authority. From a tactical point of view within the Socialist Party it put her in a strong position with the party activists. She began to be known by them as the Zapatera, after the new Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Zapatero. Unlike her future rivals Fabius, Strauss-Kahn, Lang or her own partner Françoise Hollande, she had not been afraid to take the risk of fighting the government.

The region of Poitou-Charente is made up of the Deux Sèvres where her constituency is, and the départements of the Vienne, the Charente and the Charente Maritime. The population is 1.7 million, with a budget of 522 million euros. By way of comparison, the budget of the Paris Region is 7 billion euros. However, it is an attractive and interesting area with a beautiful coastline featuring La Rochelle and Rochefort. She was now the only potential Socialist candidate for the presidential elections in charge of anything. “Control your victories and overcome your defeats, otherwise you will rapidly become unbearable”, she wrote wisely in her biography eight years before. Her victory in the region was followed by a considerable purge of everything her predecessor had done. Some of this was justified. Jean-Pierre Raffarin had been a regional boss of the old school. Without being in any way corrupt, he had done his best for his region and of course helped his political friends in whatever way he could. She was going to wipe all that away as quickly as possible, in the cause of greater efficiency. If at the same time what she proposed helped her political friends, that was a happy chance.

However, her room for manoeuvre was limited. Only 15% of the budget of the region was optional and could be reapplied to other uses by the new president, the rest being fixed costs, mostly salaries that could not be touched. Much of the 15% could not be used immediately as it was tied up in projects over a period of years. Clearing out the works of Raffarin would take time, but clear it out she would. Apart from

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anything else, it would enable her to create a war chest to launch her own initiatives. Ségolène roared into action with a ruthlessness that would have done credit to the chairman of one of those heartless multinationals she claims to dislike so much. Her normal anxiety to waste no time was reinforced by the knowledge that she only had two years in which to make an impression before battle commenced within the Socialist Party to decide who should be the chosen candidate for the Presidential elections in 2007. In reality, she only had a year in which to build up the momentum necessary to outpace her more experienced rivals.

Taking control of Poitou-Charente

Decisions were made thick and fast. The sleepy PoitouCharente had never seen anything quite like it on either side of the political divide. Some changes were cosmetic, others were more significant. An experienced new chief executive, JeanLuc Faluchier, who had worked with her before, was brought in from the Ministry of Finance. She changed the name of the regional headquarters the Hôtel de la Region to the more plebeian Maison de la Region. The slogan of the region was changed from la dynamique humaniste to the démocratie participative. The regional logo was changed. One and a half million euros of “wasteful” expenditure was identified, which to the credit of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, is not much out of a budget of half a billion. Great show was made of using more modest cars to save money. It seems that not much if any money was saved, but the point was made. Remuneration of regional councillors was cut by 15%, however leading Socialist members taking on new responsibilities received extra allowances which meant that they were unaffected. To set an example, Ségolène herself limited her salary to 43% of the legally-permitted maximum. Again, cynics pointed out that under the laws governing the remuneration of elected representatives holding more than one position – as was her case – she was not allowed to take the full salary anyway.

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Most drastic of all, the regular sit-down lunch provided for all regional councillors on meeting days was scrapped and the attendant press were provided with just a roll and a cup of coffee. This being France, short work was made of this latest cost saving. A word from the doyen of the local press to the Region’s head of communications ensured that at the next meeting of the Regional Council the representatives of the media were not obliged to take to the streets in search of a decent meal at their own expense. (The writer can confirm that by the next meeting a proper standard of culinary excellence had been restored. Some things even Ségolène dare not tamper with.)

The members’ lunch was also gradually restored in the form of a meal on a tray which was initially only provided for the ruling party. The affair caused a certain amount of dissatisfaction within the ranks of the Socialist Party. The Socialist mayor of Poitiers, Jacques Santrot, was heard to comment, “Elle n’a pas fini de nous faire chier – je vous le dit”, which, politely translated, means “this is not the end of her annoying us, I can tell you”. Crucially, Ségolène made a clean sweep of the heads of the Department even going so far as to get rid of one senior official who had only 10 months to go before retirement and had originally been appointed when the region had previously been run by Socialists. Jean-Luc Faluchier has confirmed that it was essential for Ségolène to appoint her own people so as to able to act without worrying about doubtful loyalties. Ironically she who has criticised “Sarkozy – the American”, was effectively introducing the American system of a clean sweep after the change of party in power – the spoils system. This is not the norm in France, and certainly not at local level. Less controversially, she reduced the number of cheque signatories from 50 to 6 – a wise precaution for any executive or administration that wants to get a handle on expenditure quickly.

In certain areas she bumped into the competing jurisdiction of the regional representatives of the government. She demanded

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the right to see all the government papers on the water situation in the region. The Prefect quite properly declined to oblige, refusing to give her a seat on the regional technical water council, the CTRE, as it was outside her sphere of competence. Ségolène out-manoeuvred him by herself forming a regional water council and offering the Prefect a seat on it. He then found himself in the position of having to accept it because it is his duty to listen to local representatives on important issues. She then insisted that the council met in her offices every second sitting thus making the Prefect come to her. The move is a perfect example of Ségolène’s tactical sense. As both of them were well aware, the President of the region ought to be involved in water policy and no doubt before long changes will be made bringing that about. As an issue, the water question has the double advantage of pleasing the environmental lobby and putting the big maize growers, who have undoubtedly been favoured by government policy and who use a lot of water, into the firing line. In the light of recent droughts, it is not just Ségolène who believes that changes are necessary, but she has as usual dramatised the issue. Conveniently, maize growers are not only great consumers of water but also, according to Ségolène, as they drive around in their ecologically unfriendly four-wheel drive cars, highly visible agricultural capitalists and therefore an appealing and emotive target.

This helter-skelter revolution within the region was not without problems. Many local representatives on both left and right were shocked by the extreme politicisation of regional affairs. In the past, projects were largely apolitical and there was a lot of cross-party co-operation. It is precisely this that Ségolène was out to stop, because she wanted to be able to show that whatever had been done had been done by her alone. With Ségolène dealing with everything through a private office, where the traditional divide between chief executive and head of the President’s private office were unusually combined, sometimes members and vice-presidents

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discovered what had been decided through the press. “Don’t tell me we can’t do it, tell me this is how we are going to do it,” repeated Ségolène. In a careless moment in Paris in front of the press she went too far, talking of “an uncooperative administration”. The reaction of the staff trade union was instant: “Whilst we well understand your desire to communicate permanently, it would be greatly appreciated if this communication does not stain the image of the regional administration at the expense of the staff.”

Realising she had blundered, Ségolène sent an email immediately. “This affair is a misunderstanding,” she wrote. “I do not solicit this type of newspaper article, but I don’t refuse them because it is free public relations.” In defending herself, Ségolène often plays the gender card: “When a man pushes his ideas with determination people do not say that he is bossy, they say that he is determined.” Similarly, in reply to allegations that she is a control freak, she cites François Mitterrand who, she says, always paid the greatest attention to the details of what was going on daily in the Elysée.

Whether one accepts her pleas or not, there is no doubt that on some occasions she overstepped the mark – when, for instance, she decided that to save money, communications regarding meetings of members would be sent out by email. Officials pointed out that the law required they be sent out in writing by post. Her reaction: communications to Socialist members by email, the rest by post.

After a few weeks of her bracing reign many elected representatives were disgruntled and senior staff were becoming uncooperative. The situation was not lost on Ségolène. It was essential to act before news of these difficulties filtered back to Paris and into the national media. Such was the urgency, it was decided to bring in consultants to

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sort the problems out and not just any consultants but a subsidiary of the group run by Gérard Longuet, the UMP Senator in Lorraine. Ségolène’s chief executive, Jean-Luc Faluchier, said of this bold decision, “we needed to be accompanied through this period of change”.

For the first time, Ségolène was criticised by the influential satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaîné. It was a sticky moment. The consultancy fee was 89,670 euros, fractionally below the figure of 90,000 euros at which the slow and very public open tendering procedure would have had to have been followed. The report suggested a more open system of management. Jean-Luc Faluchier should no longer be both chief executive and head of Ségolène’s private office. Ségolène brushed off criticism by implying that the management consultants had been brought in because of the debts inherited from the previous administration. Everybody knew it was nonsense but the crisis passed. The crucial priority for Ségolène was to establish a track record in the region. As she told the Financial Times in May 2004, “Everything depends on my success in the PoitouCharente.”

The green vote

The first item on her agenda ironically, and typically, cost nothing. At the time, resistance to the importing of geneticallymodified cereal crops was widespread in France. The government had made the error of failing to discuss the matter in parliament and looked like it intended to push through legislation with a minimum of consultation. There was great discontent throughout France – a situation tailor-made for Ségolène. With the greatest of simplicity and totally illegally, she arranged a vote in the regional council that prohibited the planting of genetically-modified seeds in the Poitou-Charente region. Other local authorities, more respectful of the rules, had passed resolutions urging that no GM seeds be planted in

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their area. Ségolène’s draconian defiance caught the public imagination. It also reminded everybody of her excellent record as minister of the environment, and as the backbench deputy who had saved the Marais Poitevin from being cut in half by a motorway. The move had particular significance because the Poitou-Charente region is host to a large percentage of the GM crop experiments being conducted in France. Of course, the measure had no legal effect but everybody was talking about it. A hundred mayors followed suit. José Bové, the anti-GM activist, was delighted. Ségolène publicly promised to provide mayors who were sued with legal help. This too was a mere political gesture as the region had no power to do any such thing. But it made good copy in the media. Ségolène even attended court to show support for mayors in their appearance before the magistrates in Poitiers.

In a related initiative Ségolène also defended organic farming in the region. She announced her aim of doubling the area of agricultural land being used for organic farming and greatly expanded regional subsidies for that purpose. One cynical farmer commented, “as only 2% of the land was organic, to multiply the area by five would not have been difficult”. She has maintained a discreet but definite relationship with the militant small farmers union, the Confédération Paysanne, led at the time by José Bové. There were generally no direct subsidies but various agricultural organisations linked with the Confederation received considerable help. A UMP opponent has pointed out that this is very political funding: “One gives 50,000 euros to finance the tourist Route du Chabichou, which is made up of only five goat farms. 20,000 euros went to attract the World Congress of Grain Farmers to Poitiers, which was attended by only 50 delegates.”

Ségolène’s favouring of smaller farmers, and public attacks on the big ones, owe something to the fact that she is just more in sympathy with their type of farming. She thinks they are more in tune with the ecological times and, of course, they have the

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added advantage of being more numerous than their bigger and richer fellows, and thus have more votes. At a local level she has completely cut the ground from under the feet of the Greens, who have made no progress against her at all, whilst at a national level her actions have reinforced her environmental credentials. She was convinced that this would be important for the presidential elections. Since this time José Bové has become a presidential candidate himself, whilst at the same time being sentenced to four months in prison for destroying GM crops. This suits him down to the ground, naturally, as it provides superb martyrtype publicity for a minor candidate. There are several other environmental candidates; Ségolène’s investment in green policies ensured that the votes they collect in the first round go to her in the decisive second round.

Another key area for Ségolène is education and the transition from school to the workplace. One of her initiatives has been to provide free school books for students of the region. All youngsters learning a trade were given 1,200 euros so that they could get their driving licenses free. She provided 350 students with 1,000 euros to help them in a scientific career. In a typically offbeat and imaginative gesture, she purchased 100,000 pairs of the locally-made bedroom slippers – Charentaise – and gave them to the young people of the region. The traditional local slipper industry was under great pressure at the time from cheap foreign competition. She also provided free contraception for girls at school.

One of her more spectacular ecological ideas was the creation of the Lycée Kyoto, to be opened in 2009. This school, which will house the local hotel training school and agricultural college, is constructed entirely from environmentally friendly materials, and will use no fossil fuels. One representative of the frustrated Green party, in a regional council meeting, was reduced to demanding a 32-hour week for want of anything else to say. The right also found it difficult to oppose her because very often they agreed with what she was proposing.

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“We’ve done in two years what they did in 15 years,” she trumpeted and in their hearts many of her opponents agreed with her.

Sometimes her ideas did not come off. The region decided to offer cheap rail tickets at 1 euro each to enable people to get to the Festival of Strip Cartoons at Angoulème. Despite warnings that it might cause chaos, Ségolène pressed ahead and extended the scheme to the first Wednesday of every month. There was indeed chaos in the stations, with trains so overwhelmed that extra buses had to be hired. The bill from the French railways was not small. The scheme was quietly dropped in favour of half price tickets.

There has also been criticism over her determination to have no members of the opposition on the body controlling the regional tourist authority. The end result was that the administrative court ruled that all the decisions taken by that body were invalid and would remain so until a member of the opposition was appointed to it.

Her motto was “a euro spent – a euro used”, and she constantly employed the expression gagnant-gagnant to describe subsidies which were made on condition that the community received a benefit in return. So subsidies were provided to local firms providing they agreed not to move their manufacturing operations to overseas countries where labour costs are lower. They also had to undertake not to dismiss staff so long as they were making profits. Grants were given to help young people start businesses and help them start in their first jobs.

At the time of the announcement of the award of the 2012 Olympic Games to London not Paris, in July 2005, Ségolène did not hesitate to criticise fellow Socialist Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, for what she regarded as his inept handling of the city’s bid, which she described as “arrogant”. The discomfiture of the Mayor incidentally weakened the power base of Lionel Jospin within the party. Delanoë was one of

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Jospin’s key supporters. Her criticism was sharpened by the fact that the loss of the Olympics for France meant the loss of all the sailing races for La Rochelle, a great centre for the sport and for boat building in her region. She had crossed swords with Delanoë before, over control of local radio stations, a cause that she vigorously supported in the countryside. Delanoë had used his influence with Mitterrand to favour NRJ34 whose powerful signals drowned out many small local stations.

Participative democracy

A crucial aspect of Ségolène’s presidential campaign has been participative democracy. After the disastrous defeat of April 2002 she looked around for a better method of communicating with the electors and above all party activists. Advised by her friend and theoretician, Sophie Bouchet-Petersen, she conducted a trial with a scheme in the region giving voters some say in policy and spending decisions. The idea has not been greeted with universal approval, even within the Socialist Party. It is regarded by many as demagogic. “How about some participative democracy within the administration of the Poitou-Charente region?”, they mocked. Ségolène’s tyrannical ways were by now well known. One of Ségolène’s aides responded, “because it’s new, people laugh but on the ground it works”.

Bouchet-Petersen had already studied the system of “citizens’ councils” in Brazil. In Poitou-Charente the idea was first tried in the 50 lycées of the region. 10% of the schools’ budgets are spent according to decisions taken by groups of students, parents, teachers and staff in 45-minute long meetings with a vote at the end. The first year of the project was not a huge success, but gradually it caught on and schools began to agree on sensible mini-projects, music rooms and instruments, the 34

The radio station in France with the largest audience.

purchase of newspapers, recreation rooms and so on.

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Interestingly, Ségolène did not brandish this new idea prior to the Socialist Party primaries, probably aware of the danger that it might seem slightly potty. Nevertheless, it became a major feature of her presidential campaign and the party members seemed to like it.

A launching pad

What is the true balance sheet of her activities in her region? There can be no doubt that in the campaign to become her party’s presidential candidate it gave her a launching pad to show what she could do with the necessary media accompaniment. It also gave her the chance to bring to the region, and have ready, a team of advisers all set to run her presidential campaign. This is something that is normally only possible for candidates running a ministry or at the head of a national political organisation. There has been criticism of some of her initiatives, but although taxes have risen by 14.5% in the region to pay for the changes, this is less than the national average for other regions. In money terms it cost each inhabitant 6 euros. As with all political success she has enjoyed an element of luck. The timing has been perfect. Her takeover of the region gave her enough time to prepare for the Socialist primaries and not enough time for any apparent failures in the region to show up too clearly.

Local government administration is a notoriously ungrateful area of political activity. Whilst her opponents talk of nothing but her obsession with communications, there is little doubt that she has thoroughly shaken up the administration and developed practical ideas for ordinary people. In the final analysis she made her own luck by being the only national Socialist politician to dare to get involved in the regions and by the vigorous way she seized the opportunity a win in the region gave her.

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8. The Gazelle and the Elephants Ségolène first made it clear she had presidential ambitions when Jacques Delors dropped out of Socialist politics in 1995. She thought seriously about entering the race against Jospin and Emmanuelli. At that time, seeing the strength of the opposition, her friends advised her to withdraw from the competition to be the Socialist candidate. It is an interesting measure of her self-belief at the time. She has since said that she regretted not following her own judgement and is now sure that she would not have made herself look ridiculous. In the presidential elections that followed, Jacques Chirac defeated the Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin with a majority of 52.7%. Since 1995, all Ségolène’s political actions have been tailored to preparing herself to be the first woman to run for President. This, as much as pride, explains her resentment when in 1997 she was only made a junior minister, having been a full minister five years before. Her open ambition also explains why she was confined to junior ministerial office by a prime minister, wary of potential rivals for the presidential elections of 2007. As we have seen she had to fight to be in the government at all. In April 2006, taking advantage of a speaking engagement at Mexy in the north of Lorraine, she asked her local colleagues to arrange a discrete visit to her old home village of Chamagne – most untypically, without journalists and cameras. She made a quick visit to the house and then the village cemetery where the graves of her father and grandfather both carry the symbol of the legion of honour. It was the first time she had been back since leaving at the age of 18. The visit was short for fear of alerting the local press, who have a representative in every village. A return to her roots and making peace with her father before the battle ahead?

The sweeping Socialist gains in the Regional elections were a heady success for the traumatised Socialists still recovering

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from the rout of 2002. It was Ségolène who embodied that success. However, as is the way with the French electorate, disaster and success tend to follow each other around with unnerving speed.

Referendum on the Europe constitution treaty

In the late summer of 2004, President Chirac announced the holding of a referendum on Europe in May 2005. All the polls showed a large majority for the Yes vote, albeit with a large undecided element in the figures. The Secretary-General of the Party, François Hollande, called for an internal referendum of members to decide how the party should vote. The result was a decisive 58% in favour of supporting the treaty.

However the party was then divided by the decision of former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius to vote No. His argument was that the treaty enshrined values that were too “liberal”. That is to say, too committed to unhindered free market principles and globalisation. It was unfortunate for the Yes lobby that the European Commission chose this moment to put into effect the famous, or notorious, Bolkestein Directive, instituting the free movement of goods and services. Much play was made with the prospect of France being swamped with Polish plumbers that would ruin the local tradesmen. The directive was delayed but the damage was done. The result was that the anti-liberal, anti-globalisation Socialists and the nationalist Front national combined to achieve a convincing majority for the No vote of 54.7% on a relatively good turnout for a European election of 69.3%. Post-election research showed that the No vote was not in reality a vote against Europe pure and simple. 72% of all voters still wanted the European experiment to continue. It was a question of what sort of Europe. The No vote was particularly strong on the left, despite the 58% vote in favour in the internal Socialist Party referendum. Being a simple YesNo referendum it made possible an easy informal alliance of

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Socialists and the extreme left. Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP on the other hand largely held together, with 80% voting in favour, despite misgivings.

The fallout from the referendum

The defeat of the pro-European political establishment had a considerable bearing on the chances of would-be candidates for the 2007 presidential elections. All those who had been prominent in the campaign for Yes lost face. On the right, this meant first and foremost President Chirac. Far less concerned was Nicolas Sarkozy, who was by this time out of office, having been forced by Jacques Chirac to choose between being president of the UMP and remaining as his finance minister. He had demonstrated his loyalty and carried the party with him. The loss of the referendum could not be blamed on him. The defeat obliged Chirac to form a new government. Rather than take the logical but painful step of appointing Sarkozy as prime minister he nominated his own close lieutenant, the unelected Dominique de Villepin. The defeat over the referendum, combined with his unexpected ill-health and his age, effectively eliminated Chirac as a viable candidate for the following presidential elections and largely cleared the way within the UMP for Sarkozy, who had to be brought back into the government to prop it up. On the other hand, it weakened the position of the UMP for the coming elections because the unelected de Villepin proved, first a rival to Sarkozy, and then an electoral embarrassment. If it was a defeat for President Chirac, it was also a defeat for the Socialist Party that had also urged the French people to agree to the treaty. It was particularly a blow for François Hollande, who had done everything he could to lead the left into the Yes lobby. This, combined with his continued poor showing in the opinion polls weakened his position as a presidential candidate, which would normally have been his role by right as Secretary-General of the Party in succession to Lionel Jospin. Logically the winner ought to have been

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Laurent Fabius, who had deserted his colleagues and rallied the No vote. However, he had earned the enmity of his fellow Socialists by dividing them so recently after their success in the regional elections and, furthermore, the votes he had attracted in the referendum tended to be on the far left and that was to be little help to him in the Socialist primaries. Ségolène, meanwhile, had closely identified herself with her position as Regional President. She had also never been involved in high politics on European issues. She had loyally carried out her role in urging the Yes vote, but she was not associated with leading the failed campaign as Hollande was. After the result was declared she made clear her anger at the disloyalty of those who had led the No vote, but did not hesitate to accept the result. In a moment of unconscious irony she said: “I think to vote No would be a form of decadence. Because Europe is our family identity and our future. When one quits one’s family, when one denies one’s identity and when one is afraid of the future, then there is a sort of retreat.”

As one who had very definitely denied her own identity over the years, it was a strangely unself-conscious remark. That apart, the mine exploded by the No vote under the feet of the French political class proved, over time, to have considerably thinned out the field of presidential contenders on both sides of the political divide.

Once the dust had settled after the referendum, Ségolène signalled the beginning of her campaign to be the Socialist candidate in a typically offbeat style, announcing it in the politically lightweight but very popular Paris Match. In an article dated 22nd of September 2005, the 52-year-old indicated that she “did not exclude standing”. In a superb example of her effective PR method, she was even photographed carrying badminton rackets with her daughter. Her rivals were outraged – she never has time to play

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badminton with anybody. Neither the five million readers or the magazine gave a hoot. A “serious” candidate would have given an interview to Le Monde, as Lionel Jospin was to do when he finally threw his hat into the ring in the late Summer of 2006. She had, in fact, given an indication herself that she might stand in Le Monde some weeks before, but it was largely ignored.

A latter day Joan of Arc?

Very early in her campaign in 2005, at a big meeting with students at the Science Po at Bordeaux, she adopted a stance that startled her audiences. In answer to the question, “Which figure from history would you like to have been?” her instant reply was not one of the great figures of the Socialist past but Joan of Arc. The surprise of her very bright audience can best be appreciated by remembering that Joan of Arc is not an icon that Socialists normally invoke in France. Not only is she a saint of the Catholic Church but also the symbol of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the far-right Front national. She is, of course, part of the mental equipment of every French citizen and closely associated with de Gaulle and the resistance. That simple answer was an extremely bold political statement for a Socialist. It was not the first time that she had publicly proclaimed her politically-incorrect attachment to the patriotic hero of her childhood in Lorraine. In 1998 she delivered a speech in Orleans, a city eternally associated with St Joan, that surprised her audience. Blending feminism with patriotism, as well as her feeling of being an outsider in her own party, she said: “In a world monopolised by men you committed a triple heresy of being a female strategist, a female warrior and a female woman of God. On top of all that the worst offence of all is you did it from the lowest social background on your own. I want to say to you in the name of all women and sisters sacrificed, the

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mutilated, sold, exploited and killed since birth just because they were women, how much we need other Joans to emerge everywhere in the world.”

French commentators have tended to make the huge mental leap that she was talking about herself. In another part of her speech it is obvious that she was: “Politics, like you, ought to be disturbing, gallantly generous and fiercely moral”. Throughout the speech, strikingly, in addressing St Joan she used the familiar tu. On these two occasions she clearly puts into prominence her ambivalent attitude to religion.

However, lest we take all this too seriously, as always with Ségolène there are surprises. Asked in January 2007 by an American celebrity interviewer which female figure inspired her most, she did not reply as expected “St Joan”, but according to the intereviewer named an obscure but heroic revolutionary woman, Oleinde Degoude: “Oleinde Degoude who fought for ‘women’s citizenship’. She was not successful. It took a long time before French women obtained the right to vote and France was one of the last European countries [to allow women to vote]. She was executed and even though she did not succeed, the following generations of women relit the torch of this rebellion.”

No-one in the press office at Socialist Party headquarters had ever heard of her. This is in part because the perplexed American interviewer, Daphne Barak, more used to interviewing film stars than feminist énarques, had mispelt ‘Olympe de Gouges’, a butcher’s daughter and playwright who was guillotined for, amongst other things, producing a feminist mirror copy of the Declaration of the Rights of Man – Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne. After her execution, a French newspaper wrote of her: “Olympe de Gouges, born with an exalted imagination, mistook her delirium for an inspiration

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of nature. She wanted to be a man of state. She took up the projects of the perfidious people who want to divide France. It seems the law has punished this conspirator for having forgotten the virtues that belong to her sex.”

The role of religion

The Socialist Party is strongly anti-clerical. There is a tendency on the part of rivals to accuse Ségolène of being a closet Catholic. Her children are baptised, and she has said enigmatically that she “was a Catholic and is now nonpractising”.

In La Vérité d’Une Femme, she wrote, “very early on, I realised the danger of mixing religion and politics, and strongly adhered to lay values”, however, she continues: “Even so, there exists – as I know – in religious tradition, messages or love of non-violence which are more character-building than the apprenticeship of making do and the cult of money which for many young people is the only moral landmark.”

Later, on television, she said:

“I see no reason to limit the action of religious ideas as long as they respect liberty and secularism.”

Whatever her personal beliefs may be, it is likely that she has been influenced by modern research showing that religious beliefs protect the young, and not so young, from selfdestructively drifting into such personal disasters as drug addiction. She would also be aware of the strong growth of sects in France and a widespread need to believe in something. Interestingly, only one other French politician has entered this delicate and unfamiliar ground, Nicolas Sarkozy, in particular, with his book The Republic, Religions and Hope, written in conjunction with a monk.

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Distancing herself from the elephants

In a similar vein, for the next year, Ségolène’s strategy was to appear as unlike her principal rivals as possible. These were the heavyweights of the party – Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Laurent Fabius, Jack Lang and Lionel Jospin – the “elephants”, as leading Socialists are known. She deliberately avoided any mainstream political comment on what are normally thought of as the important issues – the economy, defence, foreign affairs and national social issues. She made a point of placing an article in the Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph. She gave a long interview to a journalist in the New York Times. She was new and interesting, while they were old and boring. She evoked a style not dissimilar to Nicolas Sarkozy on the other side of the political divide. It is impossible at this time to disentangle her role as president of Poitou-Charente region and that of would-be candidate.

Seducing the public

Building on years of popularity within the party, she cultivated support in the regions and the constituencies. She has been one of the top three most popular Socialists since first becoming a minister in 1992. Committees of support for her were set up all over France under the name Désirs d’avenir. They were extremely successful in attracting support amongst members and particularly new members. Her supporters were skilful in using the internet and her website under the same name gave members an opportunity to contribute ideas. Whilst she did not lay stress initially on participative democracy, she acted by its principles. Her “project” would be the work of her supporters and her together. With a minimum of policy declarations, support for her grew. Initially, at any rate, this was connected to her uniqueness in being an attractive woman in the very male-orientated French politics and the enormous media attention it generated. The readers of the French edition of FHM got so carried away, they voted her the sixth sexiest woman in the world, beating Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell.

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She said of herself at this time, with evident satisfaction, “even when I say nothing it generates interest.” Aymeric Mantoux and Benoît Simmat, in their book, Ségolène Royal: La Dame aux Deux Visages, said of her, “her spontaneity or rather her cheek seemed to nonplus rivals, media and many voters”.

Despite cultivating an image of spontaneity Ségolène left little to chance in her campaign to seduce the public and, through them, win the primaries. In the summer of 2005 she had work done on her jaw, supposedly because she had a slight lisp, but it also had the effect of making her already pretty smile quite dazzling.

She took great pains with her appearance and dress, taking advice from longstanding friend and adviser Nathalie Rastoin, a top executive with advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather, who is an expert in public opinion surveys, brand marketing and particularly revitalizing old brands. There was plenty of scope there for her with the Socialist Party. They meet at least twice a week to decide on presentation tactics. It is she that advises what clothes to wear. No detail is too small. According to Isabelle Mandraud of Le Monde, no member of her team is allowed to wear sunglasses when they accompany her. When the television company RTL used a picture of her and François Hollande together on the steps of the National Assembly she threatened to sue because they showed her one step in front of him, which could be misconstrued.

Re-vitalisation of the Socialist Party

There is no doubt that she was helped at this time by the modernisation of the party being undertaken by François Hollande. A huge membership drive was launched on the internet and 100,000 members joined at a reduced membership fee of 20 euros. Only 10% of them were former members returning to the fold. They were often younger and from the private sector. The average age fell from 55 to 43 years old, and the percentage of retired people fell from 40% to 15%. The number of members with three years of higher education

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went up from 30% to 54%. This changed membership profile was very much in Ségolène’s favour. Almost uniquely for someone seeking to lead a Socialist Party, she was not a leader of a faction or even a member of one, and the support from these new members was vital to her.

Her vagueness on policy and her deliberate emphasis of her femininity irritated her rivals but at the same time made it difficult for them to attack her. When they did, she implied that they were macho, reactionary males. She was helped in this by the inanity of some of the comments of her male rivals, most notably, “But who will look after the children?” by Laurent Fabius. Quite inoffensive journalists found themselves fiercely confronted by Ségolène at her most truculent with the question “Would you ask that question if I was a man?”

Appealing to the middle ground

To maintain and reinforce her reputation in the country as a moderate, and thus boost her public opinion ratings, she espoused certain policies that could have come from the mouth of her main right-wing rival, Nicolas Sarkozy. The more her orthodox Socialist rivals expressed their shock and horror, the better she did in the public opinion polls, in due course moving ahead of Sarkozy. This in turn built up pressure within the regions and the constituencies for party officials to support her. A watershed – and an indication of her growing success – came with the otherwise unimportant municipal by-election at Privas in March 2006. The Socialist Party in the small town in the Ardèche was contacted by headquarters in Paris and asked if they would like a national figure to come and address a meeting in support. All the would-be national candidates offered their services and the local party was asked who they wanted. They opted without hesitation for Ségolène. Owing to traffic jams in Paris she arrived two hours late fearing there would be nobody left at the hall. As it was, a thousand people turned up to squeeze into a hall designed for 400 and they waited patiently for her. Significantly, the total membership of

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the Socialist Party in the area was only 600. This meeting was very significant in influencing regional leaders to support her, as it echoed the enthusiasm for her which they had already detected in their own constituencies.

In May 2006, the United States Ambassador, Craig Stapleton, visited the dockyard where the life-sized replica of the frigate Hermione in which Lafayette sailed to support the American revolutionaries was being built. The occasion attracted a swarm of foreign television journalists. They were much more interested in Ségolène than in the American diplomat. There was much curiosity about her attitude to the insulting remarks that had been made about her by her colleagues. She replied: “I hear them. I will not forget them but I take them with a sense of humour. I am working, doing the job. I am at the head of the region. I get things done. I fight for my projects, for the environment. It is the good side of public life. The ambition I have for my country is the necessity to raise France up and I apply that to myself.”

“What,” asked the journalist from Irish television, “is the biggest problem your country has?” The reply was instant: “unemployment”, followed by a pause and then: “. . . and confidence. I think that if we apply all our energy and intelligence of which we have a lot in this country, I think that France can go forward and come out on top.”

Nicolas Sarkozy could not have put it better.

On this occasion a BBC journalist asked her to reply in English to some questions. Ségolène declined. She said she would be happy to answer questions addressed to her in English but the answers would be in French. Despite this, the US ambassador was clearly impressed as he let drop the indiscretion, “If the French elect a woman, it will increase growth by 3%!” (There is a TV clip on the internet of her answering questions in English. She speaks it fluently but obviously lacking in practice and with a heavy accent.) 137

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The young and military service

At the beginning of June 2006, after visiting the inner city suburb at Bondy, she said “The abolition of military service was a mistake. It is time to reinvent it. We need a return of the heavy hand”. Her proposal was that any young person over 16 who committed offences should be sent to do military service. Not surprisingly this caused grave misgivings within her own party. Her opponents made the most of what they thought was an opportunity to damage her. Dominique Strauss-Khan, the former finance minister and rival for the right to represent the party, said “we already have one Sarkozy in this country, there is no point in having two”. But Ségolène clearly knew what she was doing, well aware that worries about law and order are widespread in France, as much amongst the Socialists as any other part of the community. It is a particular concern in the inner city suburbs where many voters deserted the Socialist Party in 2002 to vote for the Front national because they did not believe that Lionel Jospin took the issue seriously. Whatever it may do to her credentials as a good leftwinger, Ségolène does not intend to make the same mistake as Jospin. Compulsory military service was abolished in France in 2001. In making this suggestion Ségolène was also aligning herself with the many voters who feel that the young in the inner city suburbs would have benefited from the compulsory military service that had been in force in one form or another from the time of Napoleon until 2001. Not only was she trespassing on Sarkozy’s law and order territory but she was attracting the attention of traditionalist voters to the fact that her father was a colonel and her grandfather was a general. It should not be forgotten that the vast majority of males in France have done military service and many of those saw active service not only in the Second World War but in Indochina from 1945 to 1954 and in Algeria from 1958 to 1962. However she was careful to follow up her remarks by saying:

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“No, military training isn’t military service where one learns to shoot and drive a tank … it’s about giving a certain number of reference points to young people in terms of respect.”

She said the type of military training she had meant was vocational humanitarian work. Despite the mockery that her remarks attracted in some sections of the party, others realised that she had, as Angelique Chrisafisis of The Guardian put it, “forced a debate amongst Socialist Party members”.

Tony Blair – “I support his ideas”

There is a similar tactical side to her comments in the British press about Tony Blair, saying that “he has been caricatured in France. It does not bother me to state that I support his ideas.” As she must have known would happen, this was portrayed in the French media as another gaffe and excessive adherence to Blair’s right-wing stance. Laurent Fabius rose to the bait and demanded, “a manifesto clearly on the left”. He said, “if it’s a question of defending Blairism, I won’t be there”. But Ségolène then made herself perfectly clear. “I give Blair the credit for trying to understand his times and then acting energetically. Tony Blair has massively invested in the public services. He has lowered the average rate of unemployment and that of the young in particular. It is true, partly through flexibility and with a large number of poor workers, but also with a message of dynamism and confidence to the young and with a call to businesses to give them their chance and trust them with responsibility.”

Her endorsement of the idea of putting family allowances under supervision where there is family breakdown and the children are out of control is straight out of Tony Blair’s book. On the other hand she was careful to make quite clear that she condemned the invasion of Iraq and thought he had served one term too many. It is worth noting that she said, “I think two

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successive terms is enough”, although she did not confirm this as a pledge in her manifesto.

In March 2006, Ségolène delivered a speech in which she expressed sentiments that could have been uttered by any centre-right politician: “I believe that we must put collective moral standards at the heart of our electoral proposals that we must support in the months and years to come. We must put a stop to this downward trend, break with this defeatism, with this levelling down. It is possible! … we must establish a fair world through a return to confidence, through the return to clear standards, through the proper functioning of public services, through rules of honesty which are the same for everybody, for the unimportant and the important, for those on top as well as those at the bottom, so that a sustainable ordered state of society can be built other than by setting people against each other, and in a way that is different to the provocations and ministerial verbal violence which only demonstrate an incapacity to guarantee calm and security.”

35-hour week and the CPE

She broke the party taboo in criticizing the 35-hour week which she said had had certain undesirable effects on wage earners. However she was careful to say some nice things about it as well, that not everybody would agree with: “The 35 hours improved the quality of life of many wage earners, improved productivity and created jobs.”

She then added, a little confusingly:

“There are wage earners who want to work more and this freedom should be given to them … in agreement with the trade unions. The countries where the working hours are the lowest are also those where the unemployment is lowest.”

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Later she criticized the 35-hour week because she said it caused some wage-earning women to have to work more difficult hours, “whereas women executives benefited”. The message received by the public from this slightly confusing series of statements was that she was not afraid to criticize the 35-hour week, which put her in line with public opinion.

It is also worth noting that during the CPE youth employment contract crisis, she did not rush into the streets to take part in demonstrations, nor did she make any inflammatory comments, being fully aware that a large percentage of the electorate is deeply suspicious of street demonstrations and the blockading of universities and schools by methods that have little to do with peaceful democracy. Instead she criticised the prime minister for his method of forcing through a vote under article 49-3 in the National Assembly and only then afterwards asking the unions in for consultation. It was a similar stance to the one she took during the riots in the inner city suburbs in November 2005. Although at that time she avoided talking about the need for military training for delinquent youths, she did talk about the need to support parents and confined herself largely to attacking Nicolas Sarkozy’s responsibility for the riots stressing his “failure”.

At all times during both these periods of disturbance, when a large majority of the electorate was afraid that they might get out of hand, she took great care to adopt a stance on law and order with which those same electors could identify. Simply blaming the police, she realised, was not enough, particularly as they behaved throughout the disturbances with surprising and exemplary discipline. During the 27 days of rioting in the suburbs there were no serious injuries to rioters and above all no deaths. Perhaps she remembered that François Mitterrand’s attempt to capitalise on the student riots in 1968 was followed by 13 years in opposition. Her call for an ordre juste, as fellow deputy Jean-Luc Mélenchon has commented, strangely echoes the Papal

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utterance six weeks before by Pope Benoît XVI in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est in which he said “the just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics”. Mélenchon commented, “if Royal is today favoured by the opinion polls it is because she personifies a twin call for the end of a worn out system and at the same time for law and order, with her ordre juste of the mother of a family”. This success with public opinion did not stop a rival commenting wryly, “the militarisation of law and order is not the ordre juste; it is just order”.

Throughout the summer and early autumn leading up to the formal Socialist primary campaign in October and November 2006, Ségolène consistently stuck to this line, which marked her out from the other candidates. It was a line that took note of public opinion and separated her from those other Socialists whom the public suspect of being “soft on law and order”. It was a realisation that a desire for law and order is not a matter of left and right, it is a universal requirement for all except the criminal underclass.

When she said “no-one should be paid for doing nothing”, the Socialist establishment gasped but she knew that ordinary Party members are as irritated as anybody else by the work-shy who cost the taxpayer a fortune. In every community in France the neighbours know who they are. This realisation marked her out from her rivals and was a fundamental reason for her success in the primaries.

The ghost of Mitterrand

The other important theme of her campaign was to stress her close affinity with François Mitterrand. He played a big part in Ségolène Royal’s early career and he played a part in her campaign to be candidate. She realised two things. Discussion of policies divide the party. Memories of François Mitterrand, their most successful leader, unites it. She has consciously put herself forward as his political successor. Note, she does not

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use the word heir but successor. The one who will take his place by right. His face was on the first issue of the Socialist newspaper L’Hebdo des Socialistes in 2007. When Ségolène decided to visit China in January 2007 she was copying Mitterrand’s visit in 1981. In that year Mitterrand famously visited the Great Wall and was photographed in his trade mark overcoat and felt hat. Not only was she putting herself above the political hurly-burly in a dead period after Christmas, where candidates often only do themselves harm. She was also consciously treading in his intellectual footsteps on the Great Wall, reminding the Socialist Party of their great electoral victories of 1981 and 1988. Before she left she was quoted as saying to her former patron, Jacques Attali, “if you see any journalists, tell them how close I was to François Mitterrand”. On the anniversary of his death in January 2007 a long article appeared in Le Monde emphasising her links with him, with a highly evocative photograph of her and her eldest son Thomas holding hands by Mitterrand’s graveside.

At the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the death of the only Socialist President of the Fifth Republic, in January 2006, she completely wrong-footed her rivals by staying away from the memorial service. In a deliberate imitation of Mitterrand at his ethereal best, she told the press, “I will be there in my heart and in my thoughts. He would have made the same choice”. This semi-mystical utterance, very much in the style of the subject of the memorial service, marked her out from the assorted collection of Socialist politicians all trying rather pathetically to prove their links with the great man. Instead, she went to Chile to celebrate the election of their first woman president, Michelle Bachelet. At the same time she let drop that it was with the help of funds from her Regional Council in the Poitou-Charente, that the old vinaigrerie in the rue Abel Gay in Jarnac, where Mitterrand was born, had had been purchased. The 25th anniversary of Mitterrand’s defeat of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in May was another opportunity for her to capitalise on this. Whereas all her rivals trooped off to Chateau Chinon

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in the Nièvre, where he had been Mayor, Deputy and Senator, she chose to celebrate the event in her own region, the region of his birth and in her own constituency, knowing full well that party members had not forgotten that it was Mitterrand who gave her a chance in the Deux Sèvres. They knew too that it was with Mitterrand’s support that she had been able to do so much to restore the area in which he was brought up.

The village of Arcais is one of the prettiest in the Marais Poitevin. The hall was packed, the Mayor is still the person as 25 years ago – Jean Leyssène. There was a crowd of French and foreign journalists. In reply to the Mayor, who finished his speech, “we want to say thank you for all the work that you have done and which is not yet finished”, Ségolène evoked the President’s support for the grand travaux and the diversion of the autoroute: “We opposed it and we were able to count on the vital support of the President of the Republic who told us, ‘we must control the passions of those who worship concrete and not think that the ultimate aim is to go straight ahead without looking where we’re going. In as much as we are accountable for the money of the taxpayers, we are also accountable for the beauty of France and the well-being of its inhabitants’. François Mitterrand knew the importance of the long-term, of the slow accumulation of the history of France, which has made us what we are and which has to be taken into account in any ambition for permanent change.”

She continued:

“François Mitterrand knew the virtues of tenacity, of sticking to the ultimate aim and not being distracted by the superficial agitations of the moment. Without doubt he began to forge this character in his childhood in the Charentaise. Later he tempered it in the political battle with that courage which he considered necessary for the exercise of the highest office. He applied it

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without weakening in a world where yesterday, as today, only political will in the best sense of the term can impose a change of direction on the chaos of affairs, the disruption of relationships and the social imbalances which fragment the nation, crush the weakest, make the people insecure and saps their confidence in the future.”

She went on again to quote her version of his words at his last Socialist Council of Ministers on that 24th of March 1993: “The road will be long. You will be spared nothing. Be faithful to your convictions, continue to listen to the people, never forget that the cause which we serve is bigger than all of us.”

Roars of applause and dewy eyes everywhere. What a difference in presentation to the cold-blooded droit d’inventaire (“right to a stock taking”) of the chilly Protestant Lionel Jospin. After unveiling a plaque in memory of her old boss and taking a trip in a small boat on her beloved Marais waterways, Ségolène was “persuaded” by journalists to give an impromptu press conference. There were as many foreign as French media people there. Beneath the shade of a tree there was a more or less informal chat between her and the press.

Once again the inevitable question came up from a foreigner, asking her what she thought of “these unbelievable comments from the men in your party”, referring to the very male chauvinist reactions to her success in the opinion polls. In a reply that was clearly not impromptu she said, “you know that the gazelle runs faster than elephants”. Of course, she said that comment was only intended for the foreign press. “Too late,” replied the delighted French journalists. With her usual skill, Ségolène had launched a phrase that summed up the situation – the “gazelle and the elephants”.

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Focusing on her close links with Mitterrand had the effect of stressing her right to be the candidate in the fight for the nomination. It was Ségolène’s aim to refocus members’ attention on the great days of Tonton35 and the Socialist supremacy. This symbolic iconographic approach had the final advantage of being attached to no particular policy. They remember the man who brought them power for the first time after the setting up of the Fifth Republic. As Ségolène shrewdly realised, they had forgotten, or were too young to remember, the other side of the coin. It was inspirational speeches like this that allowed her to sweep past her rivals and win the right to represent the Socialist Party at a canter. On her behalf, at the last debate between the three potential candidates at Toulouse, François Hollande told journalists “Mitterrand’s successor was here tonight.”

The final lead up to the Socialist candidate vote

As the moment of decision by the party approached, both the Jospin and Fabius camps said that Ségolène was trying to position herself as a “moderniser” and “reformer’. She was, they said, misjudging the mood of the left and it would do her no good. They pointed out that the last Socialist to attempt this was Jean-Marie Bockel, the Mayor of Mulhouse. Bockel, they chuckled, won fewer than 1% of the votes of the members at the Socialist Party conference. They had tried on a number of occasions to trip her up. During the Socialist summer conference at La Rochelle they changed the rules so that she was not able to address the conference as president of the region. Instead she was invited to debate with the Young Socialists in private without the press. Aware that they intended to ambush her with a rowdy reception, and that inevitably selected journalists would be there, she declined the invitation. In the streets, a militant student threw a custard pie at her. 35

Nickname for François Mitterrand.

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Only once did she slip: at a public meeting she fielded a farfrom-innocent question by a young socialist about the importance of the difference between left and right. A vigorous and mocking rejoinder came over badly on television as an over-aggressive attack on an immature student. Her private suggestion that the 17 hours maximum that state school teachers spend in school is not enough was leaked to the media. Filmed with a portable phone, she is seen and heard ridiculing the fact that they go home and then teach privately, working for agencies quoted on the stock exchange, whilst their own pupils lack assistance. Teachers, traditionally, are strongly Socialist. The reaction of establishment Socialist opinion was shock and horror. Another Ségo blunder! they said. None of this made any difference. When the vote between the three rival candidates of the Socialist Party was counted on the 16th of November, Ségolène had 62%; her nearest rival Dominique Strauss-Khan had only 21%.

The role of François Hollande

One question remains unanswered. What exactly was the role of her companion François Hollande in this unexpected victory? Had they agreed right at the beginning, even years ago, to see that which ever of them was in front got to the top? Or was there a genuine competition between the two – which she won? François Hollande has been an outstanding Secretary-General of the Socialist Party since 1997. He has seen it through the electoral upsets of the presidential elections of 2002 and the referendum defeat of 2005, but he has not so far demonstrated the charisma necessary to be a compelling presidential candidate. As Secretary-General of the party he would have known this himself, with all the information and private opinion polls at his disposal. It has been pointed out that by remaining a potential candidate until just before the final selection, Hollande avoided the dilemma of having to say which candidate he would have supported if he had withdrawn early. Their relationship has always been founded on a free

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union. Ségolène is a committed but moderate feminist. It is easy to believe that one would always help the other.

Hollande has always denied this and claimed that in politics their relationship was purely political. His actions have always been plausibly fair and yet the result has always seemed to favour Ségolène. There have been rumours recently that they have separated, that he has a relationship with the journalist Anna Hidalgo, and that she is involved with Louis Schweitzer, the former head of Renault. Taken at face value this would indicate a certain lack of frankness with the electorate who have always been told officially that they are together – or as together as any two people as busy as they have been over the last 25 years can be. Or is this just a ploy so that he can serve as a minister in the government over which she presides?

Ségolène has also seemed at times to be toying with the media, and perhaps her companion as well, when she has talked about their relationship. In June 2006, she started journalists speculating about the possibility of their getting married. This incited Oscar Temaru, the Tahitian Socialist, to suggest that he would be happy to organise a romantic Pacific island wedding in the townhall in Faaa, the most populous town in French Polynesia. François played this initiative with a straight bat and gave the impression that he was genuinely astonished and not very pleased when journalists asked him about it. On the other hand at the end of January in an interview with the Israeli-American celebrity interviewer, Daphne Barak, when asked what role her husband would play if she was elected she replied carefully, if cryptically: “That depends on him; he is a very talented politician in his own right. But I don’t want to predict what will come next. The presidential election in France is about the relationship between one person and the French people. But behind that person, there is a team, a family... He has organised this whole political organisation and that has given the Socialists today and

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the whole left, a hope of winning. So there is this complementary role. But he is facing a lot of questions and media scrutiny.”

However in March, Ségolène, who demanded in February that the media should stop writing about her and François, let drop to Associated Press that the most romantic thing she had ever done was to spend some time with him in Sierra Leone before the civil war. “We were in a bungalow on a beach amidst the beauties of nature, in the sort of place that no longer exists.” In the same interview she also admitted to a liking for massage and working out in the gym. Time to show a more human face as the polls were not quite so good?

Equally, it is not difficult to believe that she is teasing the very unromantic-seeming, portly and rather serious SecretaryGeneral of the French Socialist Party. As a former Mayor of Strasbourg, Catherine Trautmann has said of Ségolène: “It’s very difficult to tell with Ségolène the difference between what is thought out, carefully constructed, and prepared in advance, and what is accidental or opportunistic. I don’t think much is accidental.”

Again, the row over seemingly conflicting statements by Ségolène and François over tax in January 2007, during the presidential campaign proper, apparently introduced a discordant note into the Socialist campaign. It raised two major campaign issues at once: taxation and the difficulty of effectively having a husband and wife at the head of the presidential campaign and the Socialist Party. Two elements between which there is often tension. The candidate does not want to be bound hand and foot by the declarations of the party, and the party fears being stranded aboard the runaway train of commitments made under the day-to-day pressure of the campaign. Or did it reveal the advantage of the arrangement? Were the two partners operating a very subtle double approach of saying

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two contradictory things at once to blur the issue. This has been hotly denied by campaign spokesmen, but it is still possible. It is equally possible that the “humiliation” of François was a neat way of raising Ségolène above all senior Socialist figures and that the two of them are working as a team, as always. There is the further possibility that it started out as a neat team presentation but was disrupted by the vigorous attack from the government and ended up much messier than intended. It is worth looking closely at what happened.

François Hollande announced that there would be tax increases for the rich, that is to say those earning more than 4,000 euros a month net. The party had already said that they would reverse President Chirac’s tax cuts of the last five years. Questioned on the subject, Ségolène said firmly, “there will be no new taxes that discourage work or effort”. This was a qualification, although the media treated it as a disavowal. The papers were full of headlines like, “he’s not the boss”. This impression was strengthened when she said, rather grandly, immediately afterwards, “all party officials are entitled to make their own proposals and give their point of view”. She continued: “We must rebalance taxation, lighten it on work and perhaps increase it on capital if we are to bring down the deficits. But this will be done without increasing compulsory deductions from wages and salaries.”

Her opponents on the right immediately declaimed against an attack on the middle classes. The media was full of the disagreement between the two. Yet a careful look at the records shows this is a very old issue for Ségolène and the last person to have surprised her on it would have been her own companion of twenty five years or so. Ten years previously, in her book, La Vérité d’Une Femme, she wrote:

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“…no developed society today can avoid the following question: what is the scale of acceptable incomes? How do we organise this scale without discouraging competence effort and merit?”

She goes on to quote certain salaries as being the maximum reasonably acceptable, namely that of a top civil servant, and talked of a ratio between top and bottom of one to ten. The only difference in the approach of Hollande today is he is proposing to impose an effective maximum through taxation. This evident pretence of a difference makes it easy to suspect a put-up job between the two of them on other matters. At the same time, in a fierce television clash with Michèle Alliot-Marie, minister of defence, and a one-time possible candidate, François Hollande let drop the admission, “yes, I don’t like the rich – I don’t like the rich”. It is very hard to believe that a man of his enormous experience of public debate would let drop such a remark by mistake. Music to the ears of the left of the party and poison to the centrists who do not want to appear like old-time Socialists. Like Ségolène, François plays his cards very close to his chest and it is only possible to guess whether this little outburst was a declaration of independence from Ségolène or a deliberate ploy. What is very possible is that it had been decided to get the tax issue out in the open early in the campaign in the hope that the electorate will have forgotten about it to some extent in three months time. The remark also offset Ségolène’s very liberal comments about, “no new taxes that discourage work…”. When there are two of you it is much easier to say two things at once. It is a curious fact that François Hollande is known in Socialist circles as a brilliant and witty – not to say hilarious – speaker. Yet in the chamber of the National Assembly, and on television, he rarely rises above the level of competent and hum-drum. He looks strained and over-serious. There is none of the electricity of Ségolène or Sarkozy in full flood, or the massive and at times mischievous charisma and presence of Jacques Chirac, and none of the killer instinct either. Ségolène

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is an adept of opinion polls, as must be the First Secretary of the Socialist Party. Did they decide that he could not run because as things stand his image just does not work with the electorate? Was it a deep game to help each other in the end with a promise of the ministry of finance for François when she reaches the Elysée? Hence the need for a break in the relationship because the public are not ready for a “husband and wife team in the government.”

There is an old and largely forgotten story that indicates François Hollande’s generous nature. When he was a student at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration he finished very high on the final passing out list. There was only one vacancy as a highly prestigious Inspecteur des Finances and a friend who had done less well wanted it. It was François’ to take but he stood down in favour of his friend. This is not typical behaviour from a highly ambitious ENA student. There are stories of his smoothing over personal difficulties created by Ségolène’s abrupt manner when they worked at the Elysée together. He is a generous character. Despite her feminist rhetoric, it is impossible not to notice that, from her father onwards when she was a little girl arriving at a new school, there has always been a man around to fight her corner throughout her life and she has always seemed to know how to get them to do what she wanted. A reasonable assumption would be that Ségolène, who was given a helping hand in the beginning by François Mitterrand, was given another one at the end by François Hollande.

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The Presidential Election Campaign

9. The Presidential Election Campaign Ségolène was officially adopted as the Socialist candidate on the 16th of November 2006. For her, the campaign had begun at last and she was able to establish herself whilst her main rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, was still caught up in the internal rivalries within the UMP. Nevertheless, it was a dangerous time. She had started her campaign three months earlier than had Lionel Jospin in the presidential elections of 2002. The early start to the campaign was such that the National Audiovisual Council, responsible for seeing that there is a fair sharing of time between the various candidates, brought forward by one month the beginning of the period when controls are imposed on political broadcasting.

Meetings – not policy statements

The plan adopted by Ségolène and her team was to make virtually no policy statements at all. Instead, she launched her revolutionary participatory democracy campaign. This was a carefully organised series of meetings, bringing together activists, party supporters and anyone else who was interested in a forum where they could discuss their concerns and debate party policy. The meetings were held in venues with circular seating and no platform, to encourage free and open dialogue. As previously noted, this type of consultation had already been tried in a small way in the Poitou-Charente region in schools.

Numerous meetings – the party claims five or six thousand – were held across the country and the feedback from them was collated and analysed at campaign headquarters. Orthodox opinion has mocked the idea but the theoretical underpinning goes back to Ségolène’s time in the Elysée when she consulted with Alain de Vulpian on social matters. It is also an idea long nurtured by her adviser Sophie Bouchet-Petersen, who has

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studied its implementation is Latin America and who shared an office in the Elysée with Ségolène in the 1980s.

The idea centres round the concept that ordinary voters today want to do more than just turn up to the polling booths and vote if they feel strongly about an issue. They want to be listened to, not talked at. Participatory democracy obviously has its limitations like any other system but it is a systematic way of finding out the concerns of the voters of your own party, on whom you depend for election, and involving them.

Sarkozy enters the fray

The exercise had another rather more down-to-earth purpose. It occupied the long period whilst the campaign got going. This happened with a bang on the 14th of January, when Nicolas Sarkozy launched his campaign with a huge meeting attended by an estimated 60,000 UMP supporters. Sarkozy was the only candidate and was selected by 99.1% of the vote. There was a slightly disappointing element in that the percentage who voted was only 69% of Party members – Sarkozy would undoubtedly have preferred more. On the other hand, the long period, during which he had to fend off attempts to derail his pre-campaign from within his own Party had clearly shaken some of his supporters. President Chirac was very slow to give his support.

Watched closely by the media Ségolène sought to differentiate herself from Sarkozy and to avoid any head-to-head competition. While he was starring at an American-style meeting in front of tens of thousands, she visited a small farm in her constituency, where she was photographed holding a lamb in her arms and looking at a micro-project for the experimental use of hemp. She refused to comment on the UMP rally saying people would make up their own minds. This is a typical Ségolène tactic. She does not try to compete; she just does something completely different. It was significant that she did not make any sort of instant verbal attack on Sarkozy.

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An early lead undermined by an eccentric campaign of foreign visits

Up until this time Ségolène soared in the opinion polls and eventually pulled ahead of Sarkozy by a couple of points. However, as soon as he began campaigning he recovered the lead. The accumulated effect of her slightly eccentric campaign of foreign visits also weakened her position. Her trips abroad did not create the impression that she was a great authority on foreign affairs. However it would be a mistake to take them too seriously. She blundered in Lebanon where she let pass a remark by a Hezbollah leader who compared the Israeli occupation of the Southern Lebanon with the Nazi’s of France. How scandalous, said the pundits in the press. But many French people would agree with the Imam and many of them admire the courage and military competence of the Hezbollah in the face of the overwhelming force of Israel backed by the American “bullies”. Many French voters are Muslims and, to say the least, not all of them approve of the actions of the United States government. She said that Iran should not be allowed any nuclear capability at all. Did she not know that they are allowed peaceful nuclear facilities by international treaty? Of course she did, but now everybody knows that she is not soft on Iran and the “mad Mullahs” whom most French people regard with alarm.

She enraged Canadian politicians by talking in equivocal terms about the “sovereignty” of Quebec and French Canada. This occasioned much huffing and puffing by the cognoscenti about the gaffe of interfering in the internal affairs of another country. But the majority of the French electorate are quite happy to see British Canadian supremacy challenged, and what Frenchman or woman is unaware of the far-sighted General de Gaulle’s dramatic, “Vive le Québec libre”, and his prediction that one day Quebec would free itself from the Anglo-Saxon yoke imposed in 1763. She complimented the Chinese on the speed with which they administer justice. Does she not know that this means rough 155

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justice in this very undemocratic country? Of course she does, and she also knows that many French people admire the Chinese and what they have achieved by completely ignoring the capitalist way of free trade and unbridled democracy. There may or may not be such a thing as l’exception française, but there certainly is a Chinese exception. Famously, on the Great Wall of China, she talked of “bravitude”, rather than the correct “bravoure”. Common sense tells us that this woman who has published four successful books actually knew what she was saying. Result, everyone is talking about her on the Great Wall of China strikingly dressed in white. The cognoscenti are quick to point out that the silly woman does not realise that it is the colour of mourning in China. That may be true, but does she care? The voters will retain a very striking image of her in the footsteps of François Mitterrand, who famously, amongst his fans on the left, loved China. He went there in 1981, in the January immediately before the election in which he won power, because he knew that it was the flat period where candidates can only do themselves harm. Again, General de Gaulle is connected in the public’s mind with an openness to China, regardless of cultural differences. Under him, France was the first western country to recognize the People’s Republic. These “blunders” were not all a cunning plot. It was an error to kiss an embarrassed Chinese lady dignitary. It would have been better if the candidate had known how many nuclear submarines France possesses. One? Seven? Four? But does the electorate care – or rather, does the electorate that is likely to vote Ségolène into the presidency care? Not much, if at all. If it is a strategy, it is a high-risk one. If the accumulation of impressions in the minds of a majority became one of incompetence then she will have damaged herself. January, when all this took place was still three months away from the election. Her calculation will have been that she will have pleased many and the rest will forget. She may be wrong, but as Nicolas Sarkozy has said, to win the presidency it is

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necessary to take risks. She will never be able to convince the electorate that she is deeply immersed in the arcana of foreign policy, so why not make light of the subject and treat it with a degree of irreverence? How can you debate foreign affairs with someone who does not even know how many submarines France has got? There is an element of George Bush in her technique of making, if not a virtue, at least the best of a weakness. If she cannot impress the electorate with her expertise she can impress them that she is like them. There is another more subtle aspect to this deliberate exposure of an apparently weak flank. It is the search for the role of victim. Ségolène is never more dangerous than when she can wrap herself in the clothes of a woman who has been treated without respect by the chauvinist establishment. In the case of foreign affairs, her calculation would have been that any male politician who dared to ridicule her ignorance would also be seen as ridiculing the great majority of the French population who know little of foreign policy and care less.

It is noticeable that Nicolas Sarkozy said virtually nothing in reply to her series of gaffes, only criticising her for her apparent acceptance of China’s poor human rights record. He knows that she is waiting for her chance to portray him as a bullying old-style male politician. Hence his caution. No doubt he observed the fatal tactical errors made by her opponents in the fight for the right to be the Socialist candidate, when they mocked her as a woman, and resolved not to fall into the same trap. It seems likely that his determined refusal to attack her unsettled Ségolène’s campaign.

The Presidential Pact – 100 Propositions

It had been intended not to move into a positive phase and start making policy proposals until March. She and her team were keenly aware that the election was still a long way off. However the unnerving gap that Sarkozy began to open up in early February and the steady progress, largely at her expense

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of the third man François Bayrou of the centre right UDF, forced her into action. Within 48 hours of the last of the regional participatory meetings she delivered a major speech to an enthusiastic crowd of 15,000 at Villepinte in the northeast suburbs of Paris on February 11th. In the speech she unveiled her ‘Presidential Pact’ - a 6,000 word document containing 100 proposals that she would put into effect if elected.

The speech was more than competent but it was not an oratorical triumph, even if it was received with relieved enthusiasm by the audience. If it did not cause a rebound in the polls, it did at least begin to counteract the damaging idea that had grown up that she had no policies. In January, her and François Hollande’s flat had been broken into and searched. When it was announced that nothing had been taken, the political joke was that the intruders were looking for Ségolène’s election policies. The real test, however, was her first major television broadcast. In February TF1 organised a series of debates between the different candidates and selected audiences of a hundred members of the public. Sarkozy was the first and came through very successfully, dealing skillfully and graciously with some awkward questions. He was watched by 8.2 million viewers. Ségolène’s appearance a fortnight later, on February 19th was awaited with anxiety by her supporters and interest crossed with curiosity by the rest of the nation. Would she – could she – rise to the occasion? There can be no doubt that she did. Like a true champion, when the chips were down, she came out fighting and gave a masterly display, reinforced by constant references to her hundred proposals. Not only did she know her brief but she dealt well with the questioners. It was not merely a matter of holding her own. There was one key moment when a disabled member of the audience began to cry when describing the difficulties of his personal life. In a superb blend of genuine concern and sheer political opportunism she left her desk and walked across to comfort her questioner.

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While some might doubt the sincerity of her motives, no-one could doubt the professionalism of her performance.

The audience figures were reassuring as well, exceeding Sarkozy’s by a million or so. In reality, it was likely that there would be more interest in a broadcast coming later in the campaign and particularly one where the whole nation was aware that the candidate’s survival was on the line. Had Ségolène given an uncertain performance on that Monday evening there is little doubt it would have been the end of her presidential hopes. The audience figures were also doped by a powerful internet campaign to get people to watch. In an entirely new technique in France, sympathisers received an email from the Socialist Party urging them to create a chain by emailing five friends to urge them to watch and urging each recipient to email five more and so on. No matter, the end figure was what newspapers printed and Ségolène’s campaign was rehabilitated. The opinion polls taken after the broadcast showed a strong recovery. She did not overtake Sarkozy but she pulled back to within a point. The effect of the faltering of her campaign had the added benefit of causing all rival senior Socialist Party members to rally round. A restructuring of the campaign team took place, bringing in rivals for the candidacy Laurent Fabius, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and even Lionel Jospin who had until that point hung back. The two main parties, Ségolène’s Socialists and Sarkozy’s UMP, have been haunted throughout the campaign by the fear of a third candidate splitting the votes as happened in 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen beat Lionel Jospin. In these elections it was not only Le Pen who threatened to upset the electoral applecart but also François Bayrou, the former Education Minister under Jacques Chirac, who had refused to join the UMP. By the beginning of March his share of the vote in the opinion polls had crept up to 20% for the first-round and certain rather speculative polls showed him beating both candidates should he get through to the second round. It was

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enough to cause both of them to stop ignoring him and start attacking him.

Another feature of the campaign has been the Duhammel affair. Alain Duhammel is one of the best-known and most reputable political commentators in France. He has been commenting on French elections for 40 years and appears in many of the top political programmes and writes for many of the leading newspapers. He has published a number of books on politics. Early in 2006 he produced a series of essays entitled Les Pretendantes (The Claimants) a discussion of all the serious contenders for the presidency in 2007. Ségolène was not one of the seventeen candidates he considered had a serious chance of winning. Laurent Fabius, Jack Lang, Dominique StraussKahn and François Hollande, the men she defeated so resoundingly, were all there. She was dismissed as an “imaginary candidate”. He was clearly influenced by an interview he did with her on a television programme in 1994 when she did not stand up well to his questioning. At the time, she was described as “looking like a sixth former caught out doing something wrong”. Duhammel did not think Ségolène would be selected by the Socialists as their candidate, let alone stand a chance of winning the presidency. In April 2006, he wrote an article for the left-wing Libération entitled ‘Ségolène-François, the misunderstanding’, and compared Ségolène with Hollande: “She is popular but it is he who is equipped with the qualities needed to build a presidential candidature. He has direct, repeated and personal experience of national electoral campaigns, of the direction of a major party, steering a political project, the habit and taste for debate and the exercise of responsibilities at the highest level.”

In the article, he is scathing about Ségolène’s communications techniques:

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“She only talks on subjects, meticulously selected, that are always likely to unite people, and preferably to harmless audiences. The sentiments are from the left, the character is on the right and the ideas are in the centre.”

He approves of her support for Tony Blair but points out, “she does not have either the charisma or the eloquence of the British Prime Minister”. He is also critical of Ségolène’s version of participative democracy. For him Ségolène is just “a conjuror who transforms wishes into commitments and aspirations into political programmes”.

His failure to rate her as being of sufficient calibre to be a presidiential candidate caused a considerable stir. He has come in for a great deal of ridicule but has defended his position with vigour. In getting so far in this Presidential campaign, she has shown that, to say the least, he underestimated her. Interestingly, Nicolas Sarkozy has been less dismissive:

“The truth is that the presidential election will be a photo finish, 50:50, with a close Left-Right balance... the candidate endorsed by the Socialist Party will be good and therefore difficult to beat. He or she will have demonstrated the capacity to overcome the obstacles put in their way to win the endorsement …Any candidate chosen by the Socialist Party will have a chance of winning in the France of 2007.”

This makes sense. Only something like the fear of a Front national victory could cause those who believe it is in their interests to vote on the left to change to the right. The final round of all French presidential elections where the left has confronted the right have been close, with the final two candidates within 5% or so of each other – even the national hero General de Gaulle in 1965 only beat that margin by 0.1%.

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A question of experience

“Despite her evident limits, despite her obvious failings,” as Alain Duhammel put it, Ségolène is gradually revealing herself as a tough and skilful campaigner. The skill with which she has manoeuvred on the subject of homosexual marriage – which she once opposed and now favours – and her ducking and weaving on the question of nuclear power, demonstrate as much. However, there is no getting away from the fact that she is by far the least experienced major candidate in the history of the Fifth Republic, or indeed any other, in France’s history. Four terms as a deputy and three short periods as a second or third rank minister is a bit thin.

In 1965 the legendary General De Gaulle faced François Mitterrand, who had already been a minister 11 times, gradually occupying more and more senior positions, and was a renowned political tactician and speaker. In 1969 the prime minister and de Gaulle’s right hand man for many years, Georges Pompidou, beat Alain Poher, president of the Senate who was backed by much of the political class. In 1974, Francois Mitterrand challenged Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Giscard d’Estaing had been a distinguished member of General de Gaulle’s cabinet and had also served under Pompidou. On this occasion Mitterrand was the only candidate of the left including the Communist Party, then much more powerful than it is today. In 1981, it was round two of the same heavyweight contest. In 1988 the leader of the left fought off the challenge by Jacques Chirac, prime minister for the second time and leader of his own powerful RPR party. In 1995, Chirac won against Lionel Jospin who had been first secretary of the Socialist Party for seven years. In 2002, Chirac held his place against Jospin who had been prime minister for five years and in the second round against the veteran Front national leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Ségolène’s reply to all this is typically upbeat and selfconfident. To the question posed by her opponents: “Where is

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her political depth? She has never expressed views on the great economic and social issues” – she replies, sarcastically: “I preside over a region. As a minister I dealt quite successfully with the environment, education and the family. True, I have never been minister of finance or prime minister. I admit it. That of course automatically disqualifies me from understanding French society and getting it moving again.”

It is hardly surprising that she believes she is qualified to stand in 2007. Speaking in an interview in the Nouvel Observateur in 2004 about 1995 , she said that she had had little confidence in the two other candidates. According to her: “I said to myself for several days it is my duty to be a candidate. I consulted my close associates. They advised me to be reasonable. They were wrong. In that business I am sure I would not have made myself look ridiculous.”

If those were her views in that election, how much more certain she must be of herself now. For this campaign she has taken the precaution of surrounding herself with skilled advisers, notably Jean-Louis Bianco, who was a minister under Mitterrand and his chief of staff as Secretary-General of the Elysée from 1982 to 1988 when he won re-election against Chirac. As the campaign has progressed, the leading figures that she defeated to win the primaries have closed ranks with her and she has no shortage of talent to fill the ministerial posts in areas of policy where she is reputed to be weak. In addition, although she has deliberately dealt with the issues of defence, foreign policy and Europe in a minor key, her presidential pact with its 100 proposals, does cover these issues and contradicts the view regularly expressed in the media that her grasp of foreign policy is inadequate. Her 9,000 word speech that accompanied the presentation of the pact, and other statements, deal with major policy issues in as much detail as any other candidate. 163

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She has also made statements that belie the image, created by her so called gaffes on international affairs, of a candidate who does not understand the big issues. Famously, on Turkish entry into the European Union, she replied to a questioner that she would follow the decision of the French people in a referendum – “My opinion is that of the French people.” She has more recently commented: “The process has begun. We cannot suddenly close the doors to Turkey. We are pleased that countries like Turkey would like to embrace European values. At the same time, I think that we should pause in order to succeed with a European Union with 27 countries. If this works well, Europe could then look over its borders.”

This, incidentally, reflects the views she expressed at the time of the referendum on the European Constitution in 2005. On another subject where she was accused of not knowing her brief – Iranian access to nuclear technology – she has said: “I have a firm position against the Iranian nuclear project, not allowing them access to the civil nuclear [technology]. Because I was Minister of Environment, I oversaw the nuclear installations, and I know by experience that when we have mastered the technology of the enriched uranium for civil purposes, we can then master the enriched uranium for military use. As Iran refuses to be controlled, I am against Iran's access to civil nuclear [technology].”

On Iraq she is quite clear that she is not anti-American but disagrees with Bush. She supports Chirac’s position: “I do not mix up Bush's America with the American people. The American people are our friends, and I hope that the partnership is strengthened in the research field, in culture, and in the exchanges between young people. The American people are the example

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of liberty and of the enterprising mind. We have a lot to learn about each other. Therefore, I do not mix up the two. For me, America is not Bush's America.”

Regarding her views on Hezbollah, Hamas and the state of Israel, she is equally lucid. She deals firmly with Hamas and does not answer on the more difficult subject of Hezbollah, which again indicates that her apparently naïve acceptance of the statement by an Imam that the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon was comparable with the Nazi occupation of France was no accident or novice's blunder. “There have been many problems regarding this subject. Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization, so I think that we cannot meet them… If there was a real peace process within the international organizations, we would have to gather everyone around the same table and that would be a major step. However, unfortunately, today, there is a climate of tension, which is getting worse.”

On the Palestinian State her position is no different to President Chirac who she refers to as “France”: “My position is the same as that of France. Israel has the right to its security and the Palestinians have the right to a safe state. I think that the peace efforts have to be strongly pursued and supported in order to have a good balance very soon.”

On Europe, too, she has a clear position which is broadly the same as that of François Bayrou –that a referendum is called for. This is explained by the divisions within her own party. However she is careful to call for an increased “social” element in any new constitution thus adopting the position of Socialists who voted No. In general, her views on international questions are clear, balanced and in line with mainstream French political opinion. Their lucid and orthodox nature confirm the view expressed

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earlier that her famous gaffes were a ploy to attract attention and occupy the media. A ploy which, in the absence of a response from Nicolas Sarkozy, may have gone slightly wrong. It is not possible to counter accusations from the opposition that you are a stupid woman if no-one makes them. At the moment when the centrist François Bayrou first showed signs of making considerable gains, her campaign director, Jean-Louis Bianco, coolly told the popular paper the Journal de Dimanche: “The strength of Ségolène is to describe the France she wants and the France she does not want. She will not change her campaign. She will continue to be herself. It is not stubbornness but certainty based on an assessment. There have never been so many people at our public meetings. Everywhere the presidential pact is very well received. The reality of the campaign is a long way from the agitation of the little world centred round the opinion polls.”

Overall, on careful examination, her campaign has shown every sign of being well thought out, with strong foundations, ready to be developed and expanded upon as the elections approach. It is anchored round the presidential pact, which has, to a great extent, been agreed by the ordinary party members through the exercise in participative democracy. She has also been lucky. On both sides of the political spectrum the race to be candidate has resembled the famous Olympic ice skating final when the gold medallist was the only one left standing. On the right, Michèl Alliot-Marie started far too late to create an independent policy stance. Dominique de Villepin was always handicapped by never having fought an election. He could have overcome this had he not confirmed by his successive blunders the opinion of government deputies that he had what has been described as a “tin ear” for politics. The fiascos of the CPE and Clearstream made his position impossible.

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As for Chirac, age, a touch of illness, losing the referendum on Europe, a poor performance in 2002 despite a majority of Soviet proportions, and finally a strong feeling within his own party and the nation that enough was enough, made his dreams of a third mandate unrealistic.

In the Socialist camp, Lionel Jospin ruined his chances with his petulant departure after his defeat in April 2002. Dominique Strauss-Khan, for all his cleverness and experience, carried far too much shadowy political baggage from the Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand eras to be electable. The brilliant and talented Laurent Fabius, formerly France’s youngest prime minister and victor in the referendum on Europe, always looked too far to the left, too opportunistic and somehow not quite sufficiently in tune with the electorate – too clever by half. Poor Jack Lang, who was once a shining light on the local political scene when Ségolène was an eighteen year old undergraduate student in Nancy, never got out of the starting blocks. Despite his talent he has never matched Ségolène’s popular appeal. The only remaining natural candidate – Ségolène’s own partner, François Hollande – though capable and brilliant, always looked flat-footed. Over and above that, the electorate have shown clearly that they are looking for something new, and in different ways on the left and on the right they have found it. Sarkozy’s dynamic, down-to-earth, media-orientated approach is a refreshing change from the right-wing politicians of recent years. Ségolène is new in part simply because she is a woman. She has managed to hit exactly the right balance between the asexuality of Arlette Laguiller and flirtatiousness. Beyond that, she completely out-manoeuvred her rivals: capturing the Socialist Party from the right when it has always been axiomatic that it had to taken from a base on the left. Her brilliant use of a completely different style of campaigning left little to chance and it is a weapon that she has been forging for 15 years as a minister and as president of the region.

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It is worth noting that, despite some ineffectual smears, none of the leading candidates have been touched by the financial and political scandals that so diminished the reputations of Mitterrand and Chirac.

Ségolène has shown that she has real political talent but she has also been lucky in her timing, she came to politics just as her party won power. She worked with, and then was sponsored by, François Mitterrand who was president for 14 years and gave her her first chances. She has been lucky in her partner, François Hollande, who is a talented party secretary and who has shown great dignity in a difficult role. However, on every occasion she has seized her opportunities and used them with skill and energy. She has also shown that necessary streak of ruthlessness without which getting to the very top in politics is rarely possible. Like her right-wing rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, she has shown an intuitive understanding of the concerns of the electorate. The campaign will reveal whether her political shortcomings outweigh her media skills. She will have to perform the delicate balancing-act of reassuring the centre where François Bayrou, the UDF candidate, is a powerful threat, whilst attracting the left. Finally, it is a supreme irony that the dignified and formidable colonel’s daughter, who would have looked so natural as the candidate of the right, must represent the left in defeating the little ‘immigrant terrier’ who would have so looked so natural on the left.

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Appendix I – Chronology 1953

1955 1957 1960 1964 1968 1971

1972 1974 1977 1978

1980

22 September, born Marie-Ségolène Royal in Ouakam, Dakar, Senagal. Her father was Jacques Royal, an officer in the Colonial Artillery. Her mother was Hélène Dehaye, a qualifed agronomist. She is the fourth of eight children born in nine years. Family live in barracks at Chalons-en-Champagne. Father fights in war in Algeria.

Jacques Royal posted to Martinique.

Royal family return to France to live in the Vosges in the village of Chamagne.

Goes to boarding school at the Institution Notre Dame in Epinal. Student riots in Paris.

Passes baccalaureate economie ‘mention assez bien’. Spends the summer as an au pair in Dublin with Mr and Mrs Roche, then goes to Nancy University where she takes a course at the Centre universitaire d’études politiques (CUEP). Her mother leaves home and comes to live in Nancy.

Supports her mother in suing her father for maintenance as he had refused to pay Hélène Royal maintenance. Attends the grande école Science Po in Paris. Works briefly at the Ministry of Industry.

Enters the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) and becomes the companion of François Hollande. They have four children: Thomas 1985, Clémence 1986, Julien 1988, and Flora 1992. They are bound by a PACS agreement. Passes out of ENA in 60th place. Wins legal action against her father.

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1981

1982 1983 1985 1986

1987

1988 1989

1992

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Her father dies of lung cancer. She joins the campaign team of Jacques Attali, a close adviser of François Mitterrand, the Socialist and left-wing candidate for the presidency. When he wins, she works in Attali’s private office when he becomes official adviser to the newly-elected President. Promoted to Chargé de mission for health, environment and youth. Elected local councillor in Trouville, Normandy. First appearance on television with François Mitterrand at le Roc de Solutré.

Has her first child Thomas and, with the President’s wife, founds the Elysée crèche.

Fails to win parliamentary candidacy and resigns from the council. Chirac’s RPR win parliamentary elections. Chirac is Prime Minister – first cohabitation. Publishes her first book Le Printemps des GrandParents: La Nouvelle Alliance des Ages, an essay on the new generation of young grandparents and their relations with their grandchildren – a bestseller.

François Mitterrand re-elected. Elected deputy in the second constituency of the Department of the Deux Sèvre by 553 votes, in the Poitou-Charente region.

Publishes Le Ras-le-Bol des Bébés Zappeurs, an attack on bad children’s television and thoughts on how to handle TV with children. Leads a campaign against the adjustment for summer time. Campaigns against a motorway through the Marais Poitevin. Successfully persuades President Mitterrand to support a major program of restoration of the Marais Poitevin. March 23rd, elected regional councillor PoitouCharentes, resigns 3rd April 1989 to become Minister

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1993

1994

1995

1996 1997

1997

of the Environment (April-March 1993) in the Bérégovoy government despite being pregnant. Flies to Rio Earth Summit with Mitterrand and an army doctor whilst eight months pregnant and orders an ambulance to be waiting for her when she gets back. Controversially receives the media in her hospital room after the birth of her child. Introduces laws on treatment of waste, water resources, noise pollution and protection of the countryside.

Holds her seat against the Gaullist landslide in parliamentary elections. Has the best results of any Socialist deputy. Balladur becomes Prime Minister – second cohabitation. Fails to become leader of the greatly reduced Socialist Party in the National Assembly. Publishes Pays Paysans Paysages.

Fails to become spokesman for the party in the National Assembly. President of the Socialist National Council. Joins the Paris bar. Supports Delors for Socialist candidate for President. He drops out.

Withdraws from the Socialist primaries for the Presidential elections. Resigns as President of Socialist National Council. Chirac becomes President. Fails in her attempt to become mayor of Niort. Discovers her brother took part in blowing up of Rainbow Warrior.

Death of François Mitterrand. Publishes La Vérité d’Une Femme.

Chirac calls early elections and loses. Lionel Jospin Prime Minister – third cohabitation. After agreeing to withdraw from the election for the office of President of the National Assembly, she is appointed Minister Délégué pour l’Enseignment Scolaire.

Agrees not to contest the Presidency of the National Assembly after the Socialist parliamentary victory in the election called early by President Chirac. In 171

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1998 2000

2001 2001 2002 2004

2005

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exchange, on 27th March, is appointed Junior Minister for Secondary Education under the Minister of Education (1997-2000). Reforms ZEP priority educational zones, law for the protection of minors and against sexual abuse, law against bizutage, school health plan, morning-after contraceptive pill for girls free at school. 23rd March, loses seat on Departmental council.

27th March, Junior Minister for the family and childhood (2000 to 2001). Sets up Handiscol scheme to get handicapped children into ordinary schools, paternity leave for fathers, reform of accouchement sous X, reform of COTOREP handicapped employment service, increased and improved provision of crèches. Junior Minister for the Family, Children and the Handicapped under Martine Aubry, Minister for Employment and Solidarity. 27th March, Junior minister for the Family, Children and the Handicapped under Elizabeth Guigou, Minister for Employment and Solidarity.

Jacques Chirac retains the presidency. Gaullist UMP wins legislative elections. Jean-Pierre Raffarin is Prime Minister. March 28th, heads the Socialist list that won the Poitou-Charente region in the regional elections and therefore became President. The victory was particularly important because it had been the Prime Minister’s region. Campaigns for Yes vote in referendum on European Constitution. No vote wins. On September 22nd Paris Match publishes an article in which she says she is considering running for the Presidency.

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2006

2007

April, launches Désirs d’Avenir with the first chapter of her ten-chapter programme published with the aid of the contributions of visitors to the site. Completed September 2006. “Entartage” with a custard pie at La Rochelle by a Socialist militant 16th June. November 16th, wins the nomination to be Socialist in 101 of 104 federations with 60% of the votes.

January 14th, Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed as the candidate of the centre-right Gaullist UMP. 11th February, launches her electoral programme. 22nd April, first round of Presidential elections. 6th May, second round of Presidential elections, 10th & 17th June, legislative elections.

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Appendix II – The Institutions of France The Constitution of 4 October 1958 provides the institutional basis for the Fifth Republic. It has been amended several times, most notably reducing the term of office of the President from 7 years to 5 in September 2000. President of the Republic

The Head of State is elected for a five-year term by direct universal suffrage. Jacques Chirac was re-elected as the sixth President of the Fifth Republic on May 5, 2002.

The President of the Republic appoints the Prime Minister and, on the latter's recommendation, appoints the other members of the Government (article 8 of the Constitution). He presides over the Council of Ministers, promulgates Acts of Parliament and is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. He may dissolve the National Assembly and in an emergency exercise special powers (article 16). Prime Minister and government

Under the direction of the Prime Minister, the government sets national policy and carries it out. It is answerable to Parliament (article 20). The Prime Minister directs the operation of the government and ensures the implementation of legislation (article 21). Parliament is formed of two assemblies:

The National Assembly comprises 577 deputies, divided into the following groups since the general election of June 9 and June 16, 2002 (situation on August 13, 2002): • • • • •

Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) group: 352 (plus 10 affiliated) Socialist group: 141 (plus 8 affiliated) Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF) group: 27 (plus 4 affiliated) Députés communistes et républicains group: 22 Not registered in a group: 11 175

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•

Vacant seats: 2

Members of the National Assembly (deputies) are elected by direct universal suffrage for a five-year term. Elections are due in June 2007.

The Senate, elected since 2003 for a six-year term, as against a nine-year one before, by indirect universal suffrage and renewed by half every three years. The last election took place in September 2004. The Senate has 331 senators divided into the following groups since the September 2004 election: • Union pour un Mouvement Populaire group: 156 • Socialist group: 97 • Union centriste group: 33 • Républicains et Indépendants group: 41 • Communiste, républicain et citoyen group: 23 • Rassemblement Démocratique et Social Européen: 15 • Not registered in a group: 7

In addition to providing a check on the government, the two assemblies draw up and pass legislation. If they disagree on a law the National Assembly makes the final decision. Referendum

A referendum is required for any important constitutional change. Constitutional Council

The Constitutional Council, composed of nine members, is responsible in particular for overseeing the proper functioning of elections and for ruling on the constitutionality of organic laws and legislation submitted to it. Population

62 million inhabitants (January 2004) with a population density of 111 inhabitants per sq. km. 176

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France has 73 urban areas with over 100,000 inhabitants. The five largest are: 1. Paris 11.2 million 2. Lyon 1.7 million 3. Marseille-Aix-en-Provence 1.5 million 4. Lille 1.2 million 5. Toulouse 1.1 million Administrative organisation

European or Metropolitan France, as it is known, is divided into 22 regions and subdivided into 96 departments. At the lowest level there are nearly 37,000 communes that vary greatly in size, each one presided over by its own elected mayor. 80% of communes have less than 1,000 inhabitants. At each level there is an elected council.

There are similar but separate arrangements for the overseas territories, the DOM TOMS – départements d’outre-mer and territoires d’outre-mer.

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W

hat you have said to me, I have heard. What I already knew, you have confirmed. Today, I put before you the Presidential Pact: a hundred propositions so that France can rediscover a shared ambition, pride and fraternity.

More than 6,000 debates have been organised throughout the country. I have received over the internet 135,000 contributions. I have listened to the employers and the trade unions, I have met with associations, I have consulted experts. Many of you have wanted to take part in this joint effort. I wanted this work of listening and confrontation of ideas. I wanted citizens to speak once more so that I might be their spokeswoman: you no longer accept the composition in private of manifestos that are forgotten as quickly as they are written. Promises must be kept and they must be credible. Together we will put this Presidential Pact into effect. A fairer France will be a stronger France. Ségolène ROYAL

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A President for a Confidence Regained Summary of the debates

To relaunch growth, the participants in the debates opted more for structural changes than for macroeconomic policies that must necessarily be limited by the size of public debt. We must encourage the creation of businesses, reinforce investment and research, deal with the problem of lack of qualifications, develop professional training, support small and medium-size businesses and improve the efficiency of public spending. The issues

Sustainable development, strong growth, controlled public debt, and the reconciliation of the people with businesses are the necessary preconditions for a return of confidence, combined with a spirit of initiative, an appropriate sharing of wealth and controlled globalisation. Proposals

1. Massive investment in research and development – 10% growth per year of the research budget and public funds for innovation over the five-year presidential period. (The public budget for research and development fell from 1% to 0.8% of GDP between 2002 and 2005). Of the €65bn of assistance to businesses, only 5% is directed towards research and development. I propose to increase that to 15%. 2. Put in place an industrial policy that prepares for the future and reduces the risk of delocalisation with the creation of a national re-industrialisation agency. 3. Support small and medium-sized businesses through the creation of regional participation funds and by reserving for them a percentage of public contracts. 4. Give priority to business investment by lowering tax where the profit is reinvested and increasing it where it is distributed to shareholders.

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5. Help for young entrepreneurs by supporting the creation of businesses (simplification), by setting up creative workshops in all regions, by improving the social security rights of risk-takers and by putting in place an insurance scheme for those who guarantee loans to their businesses with their private property.

6. Reform of the government: every euro spent should be useful. The existing decentralisation programme should be completed. Public services should be available equally throughout the country and should be accessible by the internet.

A President that Guarantees Purchasing Power Summary of the debates

The introduction of the euro, the increase of local taxes, the increase in the price of energy and the lack of competition in certain sectors, are considered to be the cause of the high cost of living. The cost of living index does not reflect consumer reality: it is incomplete, it does not take into account new types of expenditure and it does not reflect the different levels of income on spending practices. But the key element in the high cost of living is the cost of housing: there is total agreement on the seriousness of the situation. There is not enough housing, and it is too expensive. The Solidarity and Urban Renewal law must be better enforced. We must adopt an active building programme and put in place a public guarantees service. This is to act against the dictatorship of estate agents and property dealers. The over-indebtedness of households is also a concern. The advertising for consumer loans and the conditions for obtaining credit ought to be more controlled. There is a need to create new types of non-commercial social loans. Those taking part in the debates clearly thought that salaries were stagnating, while financial insecurity was rising. The increase in salaries is economically justified but has to be paid

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for. The government should become involved through a proactive policy and help with this. Increasing family incomes through working overtime is not considered a suitable solution for everybody. Sometimes overtime is worked and not paid, while not all employees can work overtime. Furthermore, it is often the employer who decides, not the employee who chooses, when overtime is worked: “to pretend otherwise is to be ignorant of the real working environment”.

Small pensions must be increased and the pension system overhauled. The main victims at the moment are women (widows), the agricultural world and self-employed tradesmen. The issues

The high cost of living affects the great majority of the French people and not only the less well off. Salaries stagnate, pensions buy less and less, the social services do not make up for the unexpected and the uncertainties of life. Access to a good quality home has become difficult for many families. Proposals

7. Increase salaries • •

The Minimum Wage to be increased to €1,500 per month as soon as possible in the new parliament. With a view to raising salaries, a national conference on salaries, incomes and growth, bringing together employers and trade unions, will be organised in June 2007 and repeated annually.

8. Immediately increase small pensions • • •

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The increase of small pensions by 5% will be the first priority of a reform of the pensions system. The minimum old age pension will be paid monthly. Social security pensions will be paid on the first day of each month.

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9. Payments to the handicapped will be immediately increased by 5%. 10. The payment of the allowance to parents to fund the beginning of the school year will be doubled and paid to families in two portions. 11. Reduction of bank charges • • •

Bank charges will be controlled by the government: deductions and penalties in connection with account problems will have upper limits and will have to be billed. The government will create a basic banking service with a view to making social and micro-loans. To prevent over-indebtedness, advertising for consumer loans will be the subject of regulation, and banks that grant loans to people who are insolvent will be punished. They will be required to co-operate with the social services in sorting out over-indebtedness situations.

12. Fight against expensive housing, housing security for life. • •

•

•

Increase housing allowances so as to limit to 25% of income the amount spent on housing for low income families. Build 120,000 social dwellings per year financed by a more attractive popular tax-free savings scheme (Livret A). The government to have the power to enforce the Loi SRU where mayors do not take action. Create a public guarantee service for rented property, so that the absence of financial guarantees are not a block on the access to rented housing, while at the same time the owner of the property is protected. The procedures for the expulsion of unsatisfactory tenants will be simplified. Organise tax advantages and subsidies with a view to keeping rents low.

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• • •

Make vacant, speculative property available for rent, and allowing local authorities to acquire them through compulsory purchase in exceptional circumstances. Encourage owner occupation by the increased use of loans without interest. Tenants who have rented council property for 15 years to be able to buy them. Penalise local authorities who do not provide emergency accommodation in the ratio of one to one thousand inhabitants.

13. Set up a number of cost of living indices that reflect different types of household expenditure (assisted families, families on minimum wage, pensioners).

A President of Full Employment Summary of the debates

The debate was much concerned with job insecurity. This insecurity even affects qualified employees, who take a series of unpaid placements because they cannot get a proper job. Upward social mobility is blocked. Only the most fortunate manage well. The young today are convinced that they will have a less pleasant life than their parents.

The social security system should adopt a give-and-take approach. New rights must be accompanied by new obligations. We should move from a passive approach where a benefit is given, to an active approach where a path to employment is defined. To fight effectively against jobs moving abroad, a number of participants suggested shareholding employees. The issues

Unemployment is not going down, except in the official figures, insecurity is spreading, the number of those on assistance (RMI) has gone up by 250,000 since 2002. 70% of those taken into employment are on short-term contracts and 184

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temporary employment. How can it be argued that workers should do longer hours when so many young people and not so young people are seeking a job? Proposals

To fight against job insecurity

14. Link public subsidies to companies with a commitment not to dismiss employees whilst substantial profits are being made and obtain the repayment of these subsidies if jobs are moved abroad.

15. Adjust subsidies to businesses and exemptions from social security payments according to the type of employment contract. Abolish the CNE new employment contract and make long-term contracts the norm. 16. Extend collective bargaining to all levels and all subjects, notably on the questions of organisation of working practices, working conditions, working time improvements, difficult working conditions, and part-time working. Give job security to young people entering into employment

17. Create the right to a first job for young people so that no young person stays unemployed for longer than six months without having access to training, assisted employment or paid instruction in a job. Offer 500,000 starting jobs by extending the scheme already operating in the regions being run by the Left at the moment. 18. Create a €10,000 loans scheme without interest for any young person wishing to set up a business. Create a favourable environment for the return to work of the unemployed.

19. Put in place an allowance (Revenu de solidarité active, RSA) that will enable an increase of a third of their income for every person, receiving social minimum assistance, who is returning to work. 185

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20. Strengthen the qualifications and the ability to return to work of employees threatened with redundancy: put in hand as a matter of course a scheme of certification of professional experience and recognize a right for everyone to training and retraining, in inverse proportion to their existing qualifications.

21. Establish a professional social security organisation guaranteed by the government that permits every person who has lost his job to be given a contract containing a summary of rights and duties that include: • • •

Unemployment pay at the rate of 90% of the previous net salary. The right to training that leads to a qualification. Personalised help to find a job.

This help to be provided by the public employment service.

A President of Educational Success and Culture Summary of the debates

School no longer seems like a special place, the students seem to be losing their way little by little. However, school plays an essential role as the place where pupils learn about society. It is the place where respect for the rules of successful living should be learnt by pupils and future citizens.

ZEPs were much discussed. The individualisation of school life and personalised help with homework will avoid failures at school. The need for different types of classes, with a maximum of 25 pupils, was a widespread suggestion. The training of teachers was also discussed. A complete reorganisation of teacher training and the encouragement of continuous on-the-job training were two of the concrete suggestions made by contributors to the debate on the internet.

Some contributors believed that using the educational zoning map differently would resolve some problems. Others cite the 186

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example of the city of Tours, that has reintegrated its ZEP so as to achieve a better social mix in schools.

The need for stronger links between the school and the parents, so as to generate mutual confidence, was stressed. Because of the perceived need to make parents feel responsible for their children’s progress, the number of meetings between parents and teachers ought to be increased. There was a general feeling that the moment for widespread reform in education had come. Whether schools should return to basics or modernise drastically, reform was perceived as essential to reduce social inequality and to allow all children to find their place in society. The issues

At the present time 150,000 students leave school without any qualifications. Schools should honour the Republican commitment to educational equality. Proposals

Acknowledge the fundamental mission of teachers

22. Organise national conferences of teachers on a participative basis, to improve working conditions in schools, to guarantee full understanding of their aims, prepare a plan over several years for the recruitment of teachers and the training and re-absorption of those whose jobs are at risk. Deal with the fundamental problems of pupil failure

23. Set up a department to deal with very young children, and introduce compulsory education from the age of three years. Guarantee the ability to speak correctly in pre-school classes. Honour the Republican commitment to educational equality

24. Organise free educational support for all pupils from teaching assistants who supervise revision and homework.

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25. Limit the number of pupils to 17 in classes CP and CE1 in ZEPS, and allocate 25% more funding for every pupil in difficulty.

26. Redraw the educational zoning map to eliminate ghetto schools, ensure social mixing and set up priority education networks.

27. Increase the adult presence in schools including, where necessary, the presence of a second adult in the classroom.

28. Establish preparatory classes for the grandes écoles in the areas where they are lacking. Educational excellence should not be confined to establishments in the centre of towns. Help parents in difficulty

29. Create jobs for parents in schools, make classes for parents generally available, and make available family mediation to help parents establish their authority. Give universities the resources to succeed

30. Pass legislation to restore to universities the means to do well. In five years, expenditure per student will be brought up to the same level as the average in the OECD countries. Give universities greater autonomy. Associate the regions with the upgrading of universities. 31. Create a national guidance service so that students may be fully informed as to what is available to them within the education system.

32. Provide a means-tested cost of living grant for the young, with a contract to help with study and the first job. 33. Undertake the national project proposed by the Council for employment, income and social cohesion. Culture, initiator of scholastic success

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34. Support activity and employment in culture.

35. Involve art and artistic education at every level, from kindergarten to university. A national plan will be put in hand, in conjunction with the regions, to improve the cultural facilities of the universities and lycées (rehearsal rooms, performance halls and studio workshops). Part-time entertainers and art school students could take part in this scheme as resident artists.

A President of Social Security Summary of the debates

The increase in the costs of healthcare and equality of access to treatment were widely debated. The CMU was much discussed. Whilst it is not considered to be perfect, its aims are recognized as praiseworthy. “Retirement should not be a social death. Nothing is more beautiful than the freedom that retirement gives, providing that you have the means to enjoy it.” Talk of the benefits of greater life expectancy, which justifies pushing back the age of retirement, seems destined for the fortunate, and not those who started work early in difficult conditions. The financing of pensions is not properly established. This is something that concerns all age groups. A change in the system is not ruled out provided that it is fair and justified.

The debates recognized that the number of dependent old people will grow every year, that there is concern that they should grow old with dignity and respect, and that they remain active citizens to the end. “Yes, youth is important. But what should we think of a society that doesn't do everything it can for its dependent elderly?” The issues

The Right has weakened our social security system in allowing deficits to build up, by voting through an unjust reform of the 189

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pension system, by increasing cash payments for healthcare and undermining public hospitals. Proposals

Health for all

36. Put in hand a major plan for the prevention of, and research into, serious illness – cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's and orphan diseases. 37. Guarantee on a permanent basis the financing of public hospitals, so as to allow them to face up to everything they have deal with, whilst at the same time paying attention to equality of access to health care throughout the country. 38. Establish dispensaries, particularly in rural areas.

39. Establish a young person's health card for those aged 16 to 25, giving them the right to a free consultation each term. Free contraception for young women under 25.

40. Increase the resources of the school and university medical service, and the medical service in the workplace. 41. Affirm the right to the CMU, and punish any refusal to treat CMU patients.

42. Change the qualifying conditions for the adult handicapped allowance (AAH) to include those suffering from evolving illnesses with an uncertain diagnosis. 43. Put in hand a policy to fight against obesity, based on early detection and treatment based on good diet.

44. Re-establish the facilities, suppressed by the Right, for the treatment of foreigners whose papers are not in order, in the cause of dignity and public health. 45. Negotiate with employers and trade unions a strengthening of the independence of the workplace medical service.

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46. Protect access to health care for sick people in developing countries by the promotion of less expensive generic medicines. Make pensions secure

47. Open wide-ranging negotiations with employers and trade unions bearing in mind particularly: • • • • • •

The establishment of a guaranteed minimum pension near the level of the minimum wage; Increase small pensions; In calculating pension rights take account of harsh working conditions and family responsibilities; The more widespread employment of people over retirement age; The method of financing the special pension schemes; The bringing up to appropriate levels of the pension fund reserves.

Dependency and old people

48. Develop the care of old people in their homes.

49. Increase the number of places in existing old people's establishments by increasing the number of trained personnel and their qualifications.

A President For the Fight Against all Forms of Violence Summary of the debates

Acts of violence seem to be getting more and more common: including physical attacks on people, destruction of property, acts of incivility, violence on the roads, moral violence and discrimination. Everything combined amounts to increasing violence in society, despite the reassuring statements from government authorities. The feeling of insecurity seems to be

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widespread. Many contributors disputed statistics, referring to “the vagueness of the figures”.

Domestic violence affects all social levels and concerns adults as well as children. Violence at school is often raised, as well as that which takes place on sports fields which are supposed to be places for fraternité.

Security is a right of the citizen and the duty of the state. For the contributors to the debate, this should be established at a local level with a police force “side-by-side with the citizens” – whether you call it “proximity policing”, “neighbourhood policing” or “contact policing”.

If preventative measures are to be effective, they must be accompanied by educational measures: such as alternative punishments and community work. Reintegration, helping people to rediscover their personal worth and, above all, accompaniment were the keynotes to these debates. The issues

The right to security and justice are fundamental. Violence, particularly violence against the person, has increased continuously since 2002. It is necessary to be clear-sighted and uncompromising with all crimes and all the causes of violence. Proposals

Resolutely resist all violence 50. Reintroduce civility • •

•

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Teach children to be civil: through education programmes dealing with respect for other people that teach children to handle disputes with words rather than violence. Guarantee everyone that they will be able to travel without fear on public transport, particularly at night, by imposing greater responsibility on the transport authorities (greater use of technology, more staff at sensitive times). Establish wardens in all social housing.

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51. Resist violence at school by increasing the number of adults present in the establishments. • •

Recruit supervisors for colleges. Provide each establishment with a full-time nurse and welfare assistant.

52. Firmness in the face of violent juveniles • • • •

Establish a policy of early prevention of violence: a stronger educational framework, establishment of the tutoring system for pupils. Establish a juvenile squad in every police station in the big urban areas. Punishments must be quick and firm: an emergency plan will be put in place for juvenile justice (recruitment of juvenile judges, educationists and court officials). The new solutions to be put in place to get juveniles away from crime: abolition of prison for minors, except in serious cases of physical violence; and development of strict education centres, if necessary with military staff.

53. Make the fight against marital violence a national priority: pass legislation on marital violence taking into account all the ways of eradicating this problem. 54. Establish a new area policing policy for better day today security: • •

Rebalance the distribution of the police force giving priority to the reinforcement of difficult areas both in terms of quality and quantity. Post experienced police officers, with the benefit of a substantial pay differential, to the more difficult areas (better promotion, help with accommodation etc).

55. Help the victims.

Modernise and simplify the making of a complaint to end the law of silence: improve the reception in police stations with

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the establishment of social workers from the national police force, and with the possibility of making complaints on the internet. Make a lawyer available immediately to victims of serious violence after the filing of the complaint. Dealing with the needs of the justice system

56. Double the budget of the justice system to make it quicker and more respectful of people's rights.

57. Make access to legal advice and the courts easier for the less well off. • • •

Increase legal aid. Improve the maisons de justice et du droit . Establish a public service for the recovery of damages and interest awarded to victims.

58. Protect the citizens. • • • • •

Guarantee the presence of a lawyer from the first hour of an arrest. Restrict the use of provisional detention, which is much more common in France than in other European countries, by imposing deadlines for release. Reinforce alternatives to preventive detention. Guarantee prison conditions that make possible the reintegration into society of the detainees. Establish an independent supervisory authority of the prison service.

59. Make the justice system impartial and efficient. • •

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Change the membership of the Conseil supérieur de la magistrature to make it more representative, and establish a balance between magistrates and non-magistrates. Reform the organisation of the courts to take account of the distribution of the population.

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• •

Reform the system of justice in the workplace after consulting with the interested parties. Change the law to allow “class actions”.

A President of Environmental Excellence Summary of the debates

Contributors are concerned about the seriousness of the ecological crisis, and particularly concerned with the risks associated with climate change. Several posed the question of the limits of growth: “we must produce less but better” and “reduce our way of living to move towards an economic model that is more ecological” because “to believe in everlasting growth is to believe in a myth”. With this thought comes the idea that change is possible: “If every project involves considering the environmental aspects, we can get things changed quite quickly.”

Finally, the environment is perceived as an area of the economy which is capable of producing new professions, new services and therefore new sustainable jobs. The issues

Global warming compels a radical change in our behaviour. But safeguarding the planet is also an opportunity for the growth of the economy and employment. We can therefore choose a new type of development without anxiety. Proposals

60. Prepare for the post-petrol economy. •

We should prepare for the exhaustion of the supplies of oil by massively supporting the development of renewable energy to the point where it meets 20% of energy consumption by the year 2020, which will bring about the creation of 70,000 jobs and reduce the share of energy produced with nuclear power.

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•

Create an energy centre with Electricity de France and Gaz de France.

61. Fight against climate change. • • • •

Encourage the use of insulation and energy saving in housing, which will create 80,000 jobs. Expand public transport through a windfall tax on the super-profits of the oil companies. Impose the principle that the polluter pays by establishing the liability of businesses responsible for damaging the environment. Establish true road transport charges by negotiating an ecological road tax to discourage lorry transport and transfer the cargo to rail, as is done in other European countries.

62. Develop the idea of environmental added value. • •

Make planning permission subject to high environmental quality throughout the public sector. Encourage eco-industries with a VAT rate tending towards zero.

63. Motivate all sections of society towards environmental excellence. • •

Create the position of Deputy Prime Minister responsible for sustainable development. This position would also deal with the development of infrastructure. Change the Economic and Social Council to become the Economic Social and Environmental Council.

64. Work for the establishment of a World Environmental Organisation.

65. Work towards an agriculture which provides quality food and which is environmentally friendly. •

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Favour margins on agricultural produce to improve farm incomes and encourage young people to set up in farming.

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•

• •

Work towards the redirection of the Common Agricultural Policy towards environmentally friendly subsidies, and guarantee openness and a better distribution of agricultural subsidies. Transfer the management of agricultural subsidies to the regions. Encourage farmers to engage in the supply of energy (biomass, crop-based fuels, bio gas and windfarms).

66. Stop the experimental plantation of genetically modified crops in open fields so that a major public debate can take place to decide on a policy which does not handicap conventional farming and at the same time protects the development of organic agriculture. 67. Protect health from pollution. • • •

Use tax incentives to encourage industry to eliminate toxic chemicals over and above the requirements of the European REACH regulations. Put in place a national programme for the reduction in the use of pesticides. Aim for zero industrial waste by 2012.

68. Promote the idea of a “world agricultural policy” to organise markets in a more balanced way and to give a real opportunity to the agriculture of developing countries.

A President of a New Republic Summary of the debates

The citizens want to speak out more often, and more directly, to decide for themselves: “referendum or proposition by a citizen”, “right of petition” or “perpetual referendum” etc. all the instruments of participative democracy have been tried before.

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People want to get closer to the elected representative, and involved with decisions. It is a question of restoring confidence and renewing the terms of public debate, so as to reconcile people and politics. Contributors to the debate want elected representatives who resemble ordinary citizens. Many of the contributors to the debate wanted to see a stricter limitation of accumulation of electoral appointments.

The contributors to the debates were very concerned about proportional representation, compulsory voting, and the recognition of the blank vote, all in the cause of the modernisation of political institutions. A number of suggestions were put forward to rethink and simplify the organisation of the local authorities. Contributors want more effective public services: “we want a reformed government that is more effective and fairer.”

The idea of some form of civic service was undoubtedly in the minds of contributors, either obligatory or voluntary, for a few weeks over a period, strictly organised or as an individual scheme.

The debates produced many painful examples of discrimination relating to sex, age for those just below retirement age, religion, ethnic origin, disability etc. Homophobia in the workplace was often mentioned. The issues

Too many citizens have distanced themselves from politics and taken refuge in abstention because they felt, often justifiably, that nobody was listening to them or taking any notice of them. French democracy needs them, and we should therefore build a new Republic together. Proposals

Make institutions more democratic

69. Forbid members of Parliament from simultaneously holding other elected offices.

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70. Introduce an element of proportional representation into the election of deputies, and modify the method of election of senators.

71. Strengthen the role of parliament: the Prime Minister will seek the approval of parliament for his appointment; the use of the block vote and article 49 - 3 will be abolished where ordinary laws are under consideration. The President of the Finance Commission of the National Assembly will be a member of the opposition. 72. Abolish the right of veto by the Senate in constitutional matters.

73. Participative democracy will be introduced in all local authorities (citizens juries, participative budgets etc). Citizens who gather a million signatures will be able to ask parliament to examine a proposed law. 74. Resist any alteration to the law of 1905 on the separation of the church and the state, and incorporate into the constitution a charter decreeing the separation of church and state. 75. Give foreigners legally resident for more than five years the right to vote in local elections. Reviving social democracy

76. Organise on a regular basis consultation and negotiation before any social reform, basing the representation of organisations on electoral principles and extending the principle of majority approval to the validation of collective agreements. 77. Promote mass trade unionism through transparent public financing, and instituting a procedure by which trade union rights and the procedure for joining a trade union is communicated to an employee on signing a contract of employment. A tax credit will be allowed for trade union contributions. 199

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78. Set up a civic service for young people. Protecting the diversity of the media

79. Establish a Haute autorité du pluralisme of which 3/5 will be nominated by Parliament. 80. Reinforce anti-monopoly measures.

81. Tax the revenues of the private channels in favour of the public service media. Overseas territories: assure equality, respect diversity

82. Guarantee territorial links by requiring airlines to provide a public service. 83. Introduce teaching about the overseas territories into schools, having particular regard to the history of slavery.

84. Apply to the overseas territories the principles of environmental excellence and notably the protection of biodiversity. The fight against discrimination

85. Guarantee equality between men and women, particularly at work: • •

Draw up a charter for equality of access and equality of treatment that businesses and public services can sign. The government to commit itself to equal promotion for women and men to top jobs.

86. Increase the powers of the Haute Autorité de Lutte contre les Discriminations (HALDE) . 87. Guarantee equality of rights for couples of the same sex.

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A President of France Strong in Europe and Active for Peace in the World Summary of the debates

All are agreed: France cannot be successful alone. She has to rely on Europe, but not just any Europe. Rebuilding a political Europe is the priority for many. Some wish to see the strengthening of European diplomacy and defence. “Let us end the pessimism”. “We must believe in France and her capability.” “We must have a France that is sure of itself, capable of acting in the interests of Europe and the world.” “We want a France that is integrated and open.” “If France showed a new open and modern image she would become more credible and useful in the world.”

Citizens want a France that works alongside developing countries and builds cooperation with them. Many contributors to the debate want the United Nations to return to the centre of international political action. As regards immigration: “we must act with tolerance, humanity and without demagogy”. The issues of immigration are seen as closely linked with questions of integration and respect. The contributors to the debate agreed on the necessity of adopting a global approach to immigration, centred round the immigrants already in France (the conditions in which they are received are regarded as deplorable and humiliating), and codevelopment with the countries of origin. “It is necessary to continue with a sufficient level of immigration of workers.” “Selected immigration is deeply opportunist and unjust for the country of origin.” The issues

The European Union has broken down and the voice of France in the world is weak. However, the world needs Europe and the French as well.

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Proposals

Give a new impulse to Europe

88. Build a Europe that does more to protect the citizens, and is more in step with their needs. Quickly put in place ambitious common policies on the major issues: research and innovation, energy, the environment; the preservation through a framework directive of the development of quality public services. 89. Incorporate into the charter of the European Central Bank the aim of growth and employment; create a government of the euro zone. 90. Raise living standards and social protection in all European countries through a social chapter.

91. Negotiate an institutional treaty, subject to a referendum, so that Europe can function more efficiently and democratically.

92. Initiate with our European partners an initiative for an international peace and security conference on the Middle East. Guaranteeing the security of France

93. Equip our armed forces to reflect the new dangers with which we are confronted. Our capacity for nuclear dissuasion must be maintained.

94. Build our defence effort in the context of a European security policy, with cooperation in matters of research, innovation and equipment. The aim is at one and the same time to reinforce our security and rationalise our expenditure. A France working for world peace

95. Control globalisation by working for greater efficiency and openness in the controlling regulatory mechanisms: introduce at the World Trade Organisation a scale of norms

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Appendix III – The Presidential Pact

which balance commercial measures with respect for social and environmental norms; radically reform the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to make them tools in the service of human development; institute a tax on financial transactions similar to the Tobin tax. 96. Review our overseas aid policy: move to a real codevelopment policy favouring concrete projects in direct association the beneficiaries. 97. Re-launch the process of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. Immigration

98. Establish a visa that allows multiple return journeys for several years, so that the migratory flows coincide with the real needs of the labour market. 99. Re-establish the 10 year rule that allows the regularisation of papers of illegal immigrants.

100. Regularise the position of illegal immigrants according to criteria based on the length of time they have been in France: the schooling of their children, and the possession or the promise of an employment contract.

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Appendix IV – Bibliography & Filmography Royal, Ségolène; Le Printemps des Grandparents: la nouvelle alliance des ages, Robert Laffont, Paris 1987 Royal, Ségolène; Le ras-le-bol des des bébés zappeurs: Robert Laffont Paris 1989

Royal, Ségolène; Pays, Paysans, Paysages, Laffont Paris 1993 Royal, Ségolène; La Vérité d’Une Femme, Stock Paris 1996 Attali, Jacques; Verbatim, Paris Fayard 1995

Bernard, Daniel; Madame Royal, Editions Jacob-Duvernet Paris 2005 Cassandre; La Prétendante, Philippe Rey Paris 2006

Fouchier, Claude; Ségolène: L’Electron Libre, Anne-Carrière 2006

Guillot, Nathalie; Présidentielles: Royal – 1990-2006 Editions Anabet, Paris 2006

Moulin, François; Ségolène Royal: un destin Français, La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2007 Malouines, Marie-Eve & Meeus, Carl; La Madone et le Culbuto : l’Inlassable ambition de Ségolène Royal et François Hollande, Fayard Paris 2006

Malouines, Marie-Eve & Meeus Carl, Ségolène Royal: L’insoumise, Fayard Paris 2007

Mantoux, Aymeric; Ségolène Royal: la Dame aux Deux Visages, l’Archipel Paris 2006

Pfaadt, Laurent; Ségolène Royal décryptée de A à Z, City Editions Paris 2006 .........................................................................................................................

Television archives of the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel www.ina.fr

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Index ‘12 Commandments’ for a Deputy – 90 35-hour week – 140-142 Accouchement sous X – 106 Allègre, Claude – 97-100, 104 Attali, Jacques – 37-43, 52-53 Aubry, Martine – 98, 110 Balladur, Edouard – 3 Barre, Raymond – 37 Bayrou, François – 98, 158-159, 166 Bellec, Bernard – 88 Bérégovoy, Piere – 81, 85 Bianco, Jean-Louis – 37, 53, 59 163. 165-166 Billard, Pierre – 62, 64 Bizutage – 107 Blair, Tony – 139, 161 Bolkestein Directive – 128 Bouchet-Petersen, Sophie – 125, 153 Bush, George W. – 164-165 de Chanlaire, Guillaume – 25-26 China – 143, 155-156 Chirac, Jacques – 31, 35, 51-52, 83, 94, 111, 129, 167 cohabitation – 3, 51, 83-85 Colliard, Jean-Claude – 40 Communist Party – 36, 51 contraception – 100-101 CPE – 140-142 Cresson, Edith – 70 CUEP – 23-27 Delanoë , Bertrand – 124-125 Delors, Jacques – 37, 86-87 Deux Sèvres – 52-65, 69-74 Duhammel, Alain – 160-162 Ecole Nationale de l’Administration – see ENA Education – 41-42, 97-100, 123, 147, 186-188 EHESS – 106 Emmanuelle, Henri – 86 ENA – 29-33 Environment – 22-23, 41, 70, 75-82, 89, 119, 121-123, 164, 195-197

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Ségolène Royal – a biography

European Constitution – 4, 128-131, 164 Fabius, Laurent – 86, 96, 116, 130, 134, 135, 139, 146, 159, 167 feminism – 26, 29, 65, 81, 96-97, 108, 131 Fourth Republic – 2 Front national – 111, 131 G7/G8 – 40 de Gaulle, Charles – 15, 35, 38, 58, 156 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry – 2, 31, 35 Green party – 75 Greenpeace – 59, 80, 88-89 Guigou, Elizabeth – 98 Hollande, François – 30-32, 48, 60, 84, 86, 94, 104, 106, 113, 128129, 135, 147-152 Iran – 164 Iraq – 164-165 ISF – 48 Jean, Jean-Paul – 62 Jospin, Lionel – 60, 85-87, 95-96, 104, 111, 114, 134, 146, 159, 167 Juppé, Alain – 94 Lang, Jack – 25, 134, 116, 167 Le Pen, Jean-Marie – 97, 111, 113, 131, Maastricht, Treaty of – 3 Marais Poitevin waterways – 64-71 Marché, Jean-Pierre – 71 Mauroy, Pierre – 52 Middle East – 155, 165 military service – 99, 138 Mitterand, Danielle – 57 Mitterand, François – 2, 26, 35-61, 75, 142-146 Nancy University – 23-27 OAS – 2 Outreau affair – 103 paedophilia – 101-102 participative democracy – 43-44, 125-126, 153-154 Pétain, Marshall Philippe – 15, 61 Poitou-Charente – 113-126 Pompidou, Georges – 35 Presidential pact – 157-161, 179-203 Presidential powers – 38-39 Quebec – 155

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Index

Quilès, Paul – 51 Raffarin, Jean-Pierre – 70-71, 115 Rainbow Warrior – 59, 88-89 referenda – 3-4, 128 religion – 133 Rastoin, Nathalie – 10, 135 Royal, Colonel Florian – 6-8 Royal, General Florian – 6-18, 45-46, 92 Royal, Hélène – 9, 20-24, 26, 46, 92 Royal, Jacques – 8-15, 20-24 RPR – 36, 51, 83 Saltzman, Charles – 44 Sarkozy, Nicolas – 83-85, 103, 129, 133, 153-154, 157, 161 Science Po – 24, 27-29 Socialist Party – 3, 32, 63, 83-85, 104, 111, 115-116, 128-129, 135136 Strauss-Kahn, Dominique – 80, 116, 134, 138, 159, 167 Tapie, Bernard – 42, 64 tax – 126, 149-151 television – 67-68, 109 Tixier, Jean-Louis – 15 Trouville – 45-48 Turkey – 164 UDF – 35, 62, 168 UMP – 92, 111, 122, 129, 153-154 unemployment – 137, 139-140, 184-186 de Villepin, Dominique – 30, 129, 166 de Vulpain, Alain – 43-44 ZEP schools – 100, 103, 186-187

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Ségolène Royal

Robert Harneis is a journalist with the English language newspaper French News. Alongside this biography of Ségolène Royal he is also the translator and editor of Testimony – the English language translation of Témoignage – the UK edition of the bestselling book by Nicolas Sarkozy. Robert Harneis lives and works in Alsace with his French wife.

This book is the story of a tough, clever girl from a village in Lorraine who grew up in the traditional world of a French Catholic family with a proud military and bourgeois heritage. It tells how she turned away from that and became the Socialist candidate and the first woman to represent a major party in the French Presidential election. To put Ségolène’s political career in context, there are two unique features that are particularly worth noting.

The first oddity of the current French political scene is that normally the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party is its leader, the Secretary-General; but in this case the leader happens to be Ségolène’s lifetime companion and father of her four children, François Hollande. The result of the adoption of Ségolène as candidate is that, bizarrely, the Socialist Party is run by what is effectively a husband and wife team. The comparison with the Clintons is obvious. François and Ségolène have leap-frogged each other up the Socialist political ladder from the day they met, and they now share the top table.

Ségolène Royal

Robert Harneis

The other unusual circumstance is that the last twenty-five years has witnessed only two Presidents of France, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, yet this superficial stability conceals great instability in government. In the same twentyfive year period there have been eleven Prime Ministers.

Harriman House is one of the UK’s leading independent publishers of books on finance, business, economic and politics. Our catalogue covers a wide range of subjects from personal finance, small business and lifestyle, through to stock market investing, trading, and professional guides. For details of all of our titles go to: www.harriman-house.com.

This is the turbulent political background to Ségolène Royal’s rise to the top in French politics. A background in which reputations are made and broken overnight and to which her acute political antennae and her courage are particularly well suited.

Robert Harneis

Harriman House

To complicate things further the French electorate have been consulted in two important referenda during this period. Both were about Europe, and as in Britain, the European Union does not bring peace and tranquillity to domestic politics.

Ségolène Royal is France's first key female politician. This book puts her in the context of the France she grew up in and the France in which she now operates as a politician. It covers: • her early life

• her start in politics

• her career as a deputy and a minister

• her relationship with François Mitterrand

• her defeat of her more famous rivals in a male orientated party for the right to be the candidate • the beginning of the campaign.

The book also includes appendices covering details of the main political institutions in France, a full bibliography and filmography and the full translated transcript of her Presidential Pact.

Ségolène Royal A biography Robert Harneis

www.harriman-house.com/royal Photograph by Jean-Luc Luyssen / Gamma / Hachette Photos Presse, Camera Press London

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9781905641307 Harriman House Publishing

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£16.99