French Socialist party at "sixes and sevens"

Or perhaps the headline should read "at twos and threes" because after the weekend's conference which was supposed to propose just one candidate as a new leader for the French Socialist party, that's exactly how many contenders are still left in the race.

Realistically when the party's 233,000 card carrying members vote on Thursday, the two women seeking the job, Ségolène Royal and Martine Aubry, should fill the top two slots. Both have very different concepts of the future of the party.

But a third candidate, Benoît Hamon is still in the running, and even though he's unlikely to cause an upset, his presence will probably force a second round run-off.

The biggest surprise of the conference was the decision by the mayor of Paris, and long-time front runner for the post, Bertrand Delanoë not to continue his campaign for the top job, while at the same time refusing to endorse any of the other three.

Although he's perhaps more akin to Aubry's line of thinking in his vision for the future of the party, his move is being interpreted by some as "hedging his bets" by not appearing to upset either of the putative candidates for the leadership.

The story so far

In essence the vote should be about the future direction of the party. In simple terms, does it move to the left as Aubry wants or towards the centre ground as Royal's approach would favour.

After the first round a couple of weeks ago when members voted for their preferred party programme, in what is a typically protracted process that would also see the election of a replacement for the outgoing chairman, François Hollande, no one candidate achieved an outright majority.

Everyone expected plenty of horse-trading and jockeying going into the conference, in the hope that one clear candidate would emerge.

There was plenty of midnight (and beyond) oil burnt, but no agreement reached.

The events of the weekend will hardly be a surprise for anyone who has followed French politics for the past decade, and in particular the ever-declining fortunes of the Socialist party, which even its leadership admits has been riven by internal dissent for several years.

The losers

A quick scoot through the French media reveals that nobody is really sure where the party now is headed.

What they all seem agreed upon - regardless of political persuasion - is that the conference failed miserably in its attempt to find a leader, rally behind a common cause, or achieve the much sought-after unity.

The left-of-centre daily Libération headlined its analysis of the conference as "All that for that" - reflecting on the fact that the party had ended its three-day gab fest embroiled in much the same infighting and disunity as it had begun it.

For the centre-right daily, Le Figaro, Delanoë was clearly the biggest individual loser, and perhaps surprisingly Le Monde - arguably this country's most esteemed newspaper and slightly to the left of centre - was in agreement.

It suggested that in proving himself unable to reach an agreement - especially with Aubry, from whom he is not that far removed politically-speaking - Delanoë suffered a massive setback to any presidential ambitions he might have nurtured for 2012.

And that's an important point to remember, because as well as determining the future direction of the party, the leadership vote is also about who will lead it into the next presidential election in 2012.

For the centre-right weekly L'Express, Royal still remains the favourite in Thursday's vote after the other three failed in their efforts to reach agreement among themselves, in spite of late-into-the-night attempts.

While the centre-left weekly, Nouvel Observateur, basically uses the words of the interior minister and member of the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP), Michèle Alliot-Marie, expressed on national radio to sum up what many thought.

"It'll be very difficult for the party to find a leader," she said.

"The problem now is to know whether the Socialist party is capable of finding an identity, because the question we can all ask is how many different parties there actually are within the Socialist party."

The winners

So if everyone seems to agree that the Socialist party hasn't gained from the weekend's stalemate, who has benefited?

Well first up of course is François Bayrou, the leader of the centre party MoDem.

Most political commentators agree that in future elections he could attract a chunk of the electorate unwilling to vote for the UMP but disullusioned with the battles within the Socialist party, and its seeming inability to form an effective opposition.

Another eventual winner could be the charismatic and popular leader of the far-left-wing Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR), Olivier Besancenot.

If the Socialist party were to implode, he could be the rallying figure for a broader opposition further to the left that would include disheartened members of the Socialist party, the Communists and even the Greens.

Of course that's all speculation for the moment, but certainly not outside the realms of possibility.

The biggest immediate winner though on the political front to all intents and purposes is none other than the French president himself, Nicolas Sarkozy.

At a time when the country is undergoing institutional reforms, facing economic and social challenges and a host of other issues, the opposition - in the form of the Socialist party - is without a voice or an effective leadership.

It's all a long way away from the party's heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, when François Mitterrand was president, and many are predicting that unless it can get back "on track", the party founded (in its present form) in 1969 might be no longer.

What next?

For the immediate future, with three candidates still left in the race, it's unlikely that one of them will emerge with a clear majority after one round of voting on Thursday, which means that party members will probably have to vote a second time in a run-off between the top two.

There's not time to hold rallies up and down the country, so the chances are that all three will be battling for as much media airtime as possible over the next couple of days in an effort to appeal to party members.

What happens to Delanoë's supporters will perhaps be crucial. The most obvious beneficiary should be Aubry, but as the two camps were unable to reach an agreement prior to the weekend, there's no guarantee they'll be any more successful in doing so before Thursday.

Some of his supporters simply cannot stand Royal, but others don't want to alienate her, and besides nobody openly wants to be seen indulging in a TSS ("Tout-sauf-Ségolène" or "Anything but Ségolène") campaign, just in case come the end of the week, she's the one holding the reins of power.

The story continues.

There'll be an update when the result is out.