French Socialist party saga ends - for the moment

The debacle over the result of who won the battle to lead the French Socialist party is apparently over - or so they would have us believe.

On Tuesday evening the party's national committee finally announced that Martine Aubry was indeed its new leader.

But the signs are ominous that the woman she narrowly defeated in last week's vote among party members, Ségolène Royal, is not going to give up her claim to be its candidate in the 2012 presidential election, and the infighting looks set to continue.

After painstakingly going through the returns of every federation, the committee finally confirmed that Aubry had won last week's run-off vote.

The margin of victory was in fact 102 votes - more than double the original razor-thin 42, announced in the early hours of Saturday morning.

In case you missed the ins and outs of the whole saga that has gripped the French media and probably bored the nation, here yet again is the briefest (possible) of recaps.

The full details can be found by clicking on the links provided to previous posts.

Last month party members whittled down whose visions of the party's future they most preferred to just four choices.

Three of them traditionally left of centre - the fourth - and the one that surprisingly came out on top - from Royal - wanting to move it towards the centre and do away with the old party apparatus.

A conference at Rheims just over a week ago was supposed to come up with just one candidate and one programme to put before members to a vote last Thursday.

Events didn't go as planned - in other words the pretenders to the "throne" couldn't sort out their differences and three candidates remained in the running.

Last Thursday party members voted - eliminating one, and the following day there was a run-off between Aubry and Royal.

The result, when released, was just too close for comfort.

Only 42 votes separated the two women, and while Aubry declared herself the winner, Royal contested the outcome and cried foul.

She maintained there had been vote rigging, miscounts and fraud, and called for a rerun of the vote.

The national committee then stepped in to say that it would scrutinise the results from around the country and in the process investigate claims of alleged vote rigging and fraud - all in the name of establishing transparency and determining who had won and with what margin.

Most of the national dailies and weeklies provided blow-by-blow accounts on their websites of every statement and development during the committee's count,

Television channels carried programmes and debates between supporters of both women, and political commentators argued and analysed every possible outcome.

Even government ministers from the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) felt obliged to have their say.

Finally after two days the national committee declared on Tuesday evening that yes, Aubry had won, and by 102 votes.

Shortly after the announcement, Aubry held out the hand of peace towards Royal, recognising that the vote had been a narrow one and calling on the party to "unite, rally together and renew itself."

So now the party has a leader - what chances are there of her achieving the unity that everyone agrees has been sorely lacking?

One possibility she has, is to include some of Royal's supporters within her team and there are already unconfirmed rumours that she has approached one of them, Vincent Peillon,

But that might not be enough and certainly the events that immediately followed the committee's declaration show that Aubry will certainly have her work cut out.

Because Royal clearly still has her sights set on being more than the proverbial thorn in the party's side.

2012

Already she has made a personal appeal to her supporters (half the party's membership) with a video appearing on the Net thanking them for their support, outlining the plans she has to help "renew" the party and reminding them not to forget the presidential election in 2012.

"2012 is not that far away, and it's from now that we must be thinking about that," she says.

"See you again soon," she finishes.

It's probably far from being the end of a story that has more twist and turns than a well - or even a badly - crafted (political) thriller.