Low turnout "wins" European elections in France

What to make of how the French voted in the European parliamentary elections?

Well at face value the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP), and Europe Ecologie (Greens) were the big "winners" here while the Socialist party and the centre party, Mouvement démocrate (MoDem) were the "losers".

But the most telling factor of Sunday's vote perhaps was the high abstention rate, with 51 per cent of France's eligible 44 million voters not bothering to go to the polls.

Of course it's not a trend isolated to this country, but France was one of the founder-members, is a major EU player and only last December was coming to the end of its spell as the EU "big cheese" as it handed over the six-month rotating presidency to the Czech Republic.

The overall results of the European parliamentary elections appear to reflect a general shift to the centre-right throughout the 27-nation bloc, and France would seem at first sight to have been no exception.

Indeed the results here are widely billed internationally as the governing UMP having "thrashed" the Socialist party.

And it's certainly true that the UMP of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy did well with almost 28 per cent of the votes and 29 seats while the Socialist party put in a poor performance to win just 14 seats and garner a little over 16 per cent of the popular vote.

But there were a number of factors at play and of course the interpretation put on what happened also depends to a great extent on political spin.

First up before looking at the results here and what they might or might not mean, it's important once again to look at the voter turnout.

As predicted and feared by many political pundits and politicians, it was abysmal. Just 41 per cent nationally - the lowest ever for a European parliamentary election in France.

So in a real sense none of the parties managed to convince the electorate that the issues at stake were worth voting for.

A shame really as the new parliament will have an even bigger role in shaping legislation that will have an enormous impact on the everyday lives of all EU citizens.

Still that's a message that parties in France (as elsewhere) failed to get across and indeed in the last weeks of what was, by any assessment, a lacklustre campaign, the focus was either on domestic issues such as security, or personal attacks on other members of political parties.

Simply put though the results from Sunday's vote suggest there were two big winners in France; the centre-right UMP and Europe Ecologie (Greens).

And there were of course two big losers, the Socialist party and the centre MoDem.

There's no doubt the UMP did better than many had expected, but there still has to be a doubt as to whether the result can really be said to have been a vote of confidence in the government and its policies.

Even if Sarkozy tries to use the results as a ringing endorsement of the government's policies and a springboard for more legislative reform, they're surely far from being that.

Few "European" issues were addressed during the campaign no matter how much "spin" is put on the results, and Sarkozy's domestic popularity remains low.

The other big winner was undoubtedly Europe Écologie (Greens) which garnered more than 16 per cent of the vote to finish in third spot just behind the Socialist party although the two will return exactly the same number of MEPs - 14.

The reasons for its success are probably three-fold.

Firstly, the undoubted failure of the Socialist party to overcome its internal differences and present a united front to the electorate.

Secondly the charismatic leadership of Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the inclusion of both Eva Joly and José Bové on the party's list.

In the end though it may well have been the leader of MoDem, François Bayrou, trading insults with Cohn-Bendit last Thursday that helped the Europe Ecologie do well and simultaneously damage MoDem's chances, and thus making it one of the "losers".

Before the two sparred off against each other, MoDem had been ahead in the polls and had been predicted to gain anything between 11 and 14 per cent going into the election.

Instead it has ended up with 8.45 per cent of the vote and just six MEPs.

That's being largely seen as a backlash and a reaction to the criticism there was the day after Bayrou accused Cohn-Bendit of "defending paedophilia" and being a personal friend of Sarkozy.

And Cohn-Bendit's barb that Bayrou was only interested in being president in 2012, which "you'll never be because you're pathetic," might well have had the ring of truth about it for many a voter.

Along with MoDem, the other big "loser" was of course the Socialist party.

But perhaps that's no real surprise, even to its most ardent supporters.

The party has been in turmoil for several years now and of course the infighting reached its pinnacle at the end of last year when Martine Aubry and Ségolène Royal fought a bitter battle for the leadership.

Aubry "won" but Royal never really accepted "defeat" and even though the two women publicly buried the hatchet in the run up to Sunday's election, it was widely seen as a rather poorly stage-managed and unbelievable peace pact.

In addition the Socialist party has also been criticised for failing to put across any specifically European political programme during campaigning (admittedly it was not alone in that).

Before the election Aubry had set the target of 20 per cent as a result to aim for.

The party won just a little over 16 per cent, which might not be as bad as its worst ever performance back in 1994 (14.49 per cent) but must still be sending alarm bells ringing over its prospects in the 2012 French presidential elections.

Alongside the four main political parties, there'll also be representatives from both the far-left and the far-right from the French political spectrum in the new European parliament with four seats for the former and three for the latter (including Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine).

And along with the one member from Libertas France (a combination of Mouvement pour la France, and Chasse, Pêche, Nature et Traditions, CPNT) a total of 72 French MEPs will take up their seats when the next session gets underway.

François Bayrou - the return of the "third man" of French politics

The leader of the centre party Mouvement démocrate (MoDem), François Bayrou, is back in the headlines with the timely publication of a new book, "Abus de pouvoir" in which he takes aim at the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Its release comes just five weeks before the European parliamentary elections in June and has given rise within the French media as to possible political alliances in the run-up to that vote and the potential consequences afterwards.

Although Bayrou is keen to point out that the book is not a personal attack on Sarkozy, it's still being interpreted as a reflection on how he considers the office of president to have been diminished under its present incumbent.

The two men have never been particularly close and the leader of MoDem still clearly fancies his chances at a run for the French presidency in 2012.

"The values Sarkozy has chosen to represent don't match the function of the office," Bayrou said on national radio.

"The president (of France) has to be someone who sees 'success' as something other than the pursuit of money."

Not surprisingly perhaps there are some very different political interpretations being made about the contents of Bayrou's book and his possible influence on the French political landscape.

It very much depends on where your political affiliations lie and which national daily newspaper you read.

In an editorial the centre-right Le Figaro goes as far as to suggest that the opposition Socialist party, so long riven by internal bickering and disagreement over its future direction, has finally found its potential leader - in the form of Bayrou.

The paper describes the Socialist party's attitude towards Bayrou as "bees around honey" and it cites the former party leader, François Hollande, in an interview last month with the weekly news magazine L'Express as evidence in the change of approach.

In the interview Hollande is quoted as saying the party needs to "clarify convergences and divergences" with MoDem - a rather different line from just two years ago when, as leader, he was vehemently opposed to any suggestion of an alliance.

For a completely different interpretation of what's happening though, readers need look no further than the pages of the left-of-centre daily Libération.

The paper carries an editorial in which it suggests that those who should be most unsettled by the current flow within French politics are above all the ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) and Sarkozy's supporters.

There are signs emerging, suggests the paper, not so much of an "alliance of the centre" but rather the possibility of a grand coalition "post-Sarkozy"; one that will take into account a number of dissatisfied elements. The proof is that even the Socialist party has begun openly to discuss such a possibility of looking for common ground.

Whatever the case may be, Bayrou certainly seems determined to overcome the role of the "third man", a term used to describe him during the last presidential election in 2007, especially after his solid showing in the first round of voting.

Bayrou notched up 18 per cent of the popular vote, and although that wasn't sufficient to make it through to a second-round run-off, it was enough to make Ségolène Royal sit up and take notice.

History of course has since shown us that Royal's overtures to Bayrou for him to endorse her were unsuccessful and instead he found himself rather isolated politically-speaking.

Much of the rest of his party the centre/centre-right Union pour la démocratie française (Union for French Democracy, UDF) upped sticks and changed camps to join forces with Sarkozy's UMP.

Bayrou retaliated and created MoDem for the parliamentary elections in June 2007, with himself at the helm of course.

It won just four seats in the 577-strong National Assembly, hardly the most auspicious of beginnings.

But Bayrou never really went away and surely while there might be disagreement as to his impact on French politics, there seems to be a general consensus that he is likely to remain a thorn in someone's side.

It's just not clear whose.

The world "according to" superhero Sarkozy

Ah the wonders of the Internet. Sometimes things take a while to get started but once they're up and running there's no stopping them.

What follows is a rather unkind (depending of course on your politics) look at the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, which has been doing the rounds of French blogs for some weeks now, but came to the attention on Wednesday of a certain Laurent Ruquier on his daily programme on national radio, Europe 1.

A word or two on Ruquier. He is in the mould of many a French entertainer - namely multi-talented - although he takes it somewhat to the extreme.

He's a journalist, satirist-comedian, who until recently hosted a daily television programme and a weekly one too, which is still running.

Add to that the fact that he's a lyricist, columnist, author and playwright with several theatre productions under his belt, and it's a wonder he still finds time to host a daily late afternoon show on national radio.

But he does.

It's a somewhat irreverent look at some of the stories making the headlines here in France.

Ruquier has his faithful band of fellow commentators guess "what the story is" by giving just the briefest of clues in the form of a question which doesn't give away too much of the answer.

In the introduction to yesterday's show, Ruquier took a look at a list which "proves" that the French president is indeed a "superhero".

Of course it relies on the fact that Sarkozy has the reputation of having something of an over-inflated ego. His alleged remarks on other world leaders just last week would perhaps be proof of that.

As Ruquier remarked, substitute the name Sarkozy with that of anyone else with a similar character, and it would still work.

Probably. But for the moment it's Sarkozy's name that features, and here are 10 of the best.

For the full list so far, click here (sorry it's in French).

Nicolas Sarkozy can circle his enemies all by himself.
Nicolas Sarkozy is capable of leaving a message before the beep.
Nicolas Sarkozy knows how to slam an already closed door.
When Google can't find something, it asks Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Swiss aren't neutral. They're just waiting to find out what Nicolas Sarkozy's opinion on a subject is.
Nicolas Sarkozy doesn't wear a watch. He decides what time it is.
Nicolas Sarkozy can divide by zero.
God said, "Let there be light!" And Nicolas Sarkozy replied, "We say 'please'."
Jesus Christ was born in 1955 before Nicolas Sarkozy.
Some people wear Superman pyjamas. Superman wears Nicolas Sarkozy pyjamas.

Just for the record in a post which has probably already given far too many name checks than one person rightly deserves, the most recent batch of opinion polls on Sarkozy's popularity ratings throw up some pretty mixed messages.

He's still not doing too well, at around 36 per cent for the month of March according to one carried out by Ifop that appeared in the centre-right national daily Le Figaro recently.

Just last week though, the same paper was quoting a poll that had appeared in another national daily, Le Parisien, and conducted by CSA showing that 42 per cent of the French had "confidence in the way Sarkozy was handling the (economic) crisis."

Then of course there's that other yardstick or "poll of polls" if you will, in the form of Paris Match, a weekly magazine that mixes national and international news with a healthy dollop of celebrity lifestyle features.

Its latest poll (once again carried out by Ifop) has former president Jacques Chirac back at the top of the list of France's most popular political personalities, with the junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, and her immediate boss the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, sharing second spot.

Sarkozy is down in 33rd place a few places ahead of Ségolène Royal, who according to (yet) another poll conducted by Opinionway for Le Parisien is the person seen by the French as having the best stab at challenging him for office in 2012.

Confused?

Well there will probably be plenty more polls open to equally muddled interpretation over the coming weeks here in France as the parties jockey for position ahead of the European parliamentary elections in June.

Oh yes one last superhero Sarkozy characteristic, just to round off this post.

Nicolas Sarkozy has already counted to infinity - twice.

Sarkozy superhero

Ségolène Royal apologises to Spain on behalf of Sarkozy

Yes you read the headline correctly, Ségolène Royal, the Socialist party candidate in the 2007 French presidential election, has written to the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, apologising for remarks made by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, last week.

And her letter has led to a wave of protest from the ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement (Union for a Popular Movement Populaire, UMP) left the Socialist party leadership not quite knowing how to respond and dominated the French headlines for the past couple of days.

Perhaps you remember that Sarkozy is alleged to have made comments during a meal at the Elysée palace (his official residence) in which he criticised some other world leaders.

In a story that made many of the world's newspapers Sarkozy purportedly said for example that Zapatero wasn't particularly clever, German chancellor Angela Merkel lacked vision, and US president Barack Obama was inexperienced.

At the weekend Frédéric Lefebvre, the spokesman for the UMP rejected the story which first appeared in the left-of-centre national daily Libération, saying that it was a "tract" by the paper in an attempt to ruin the reputation of the country.

"This daily, after having lost a number of readers, is also losing its credibility," he said.

Even though some people present at the meal have denied that Sarkozy made such a statement, Libération is standing by its story and the paper's publishing director, Laurent Joffrin has even written to the Elysée palace requesting an apology.

Enter centre stage Ségolène Royal and her "apology" to Zapatero on behalf of the French president - a move which has had the centre-right virtually fuming with indignation and some strong language.

Immediately after news of the letter surfaced, the UMP big wigs and "friends of Sarkozy" started firing their salvoes and attacking Royal.

Xavier Bertrand the president of the party accused her of being "a specialist of manipulation".

Yves Jégo, the junior minister for overseas department put in the boot saying "she has ridiculed and dishonoured our country."

A long-time friend of the French president and now minister of employment, Brice Hortefeux went on the offensive saying that Royal "should apologise for all the silly statements she had made."

And Lefebvre perhaps said what many in the party seemed to be thinking in launching the most personal of attacks and suggesting on national radio that Royal had "lost her marbles" and perhaps needed "psychological help".

So the Socialist party was making headlines again - or more accurately Royal was - as it was her name that was on everybody's lips and featuring prominently within the French media.

Indeed the reaction from the Socialist party itself was mixed. The leadership - namely Martine Aubry, the woman who beat Royal in the race to become the party's general secretary last December, remained silent.

But others - most notably Vincent Peillon, one of Royal's "lieutenants" and most loyal supporters was willing to speak out saying "It's not by getting used to the habit of Sarkozy insulting ipolitical partners that France will rediscover its credibility."

Pierre Moscovici a member of parliament for the Socialist party commented that he was sorry for what were "extremely sexist remarks on the part of the UMP" and Jean-Marie Le Guen, another French Socialist party parliamentarian weighed in by insisting that the rhetoric about who should apologise for what had been a more than a little muddled.

"It's not the declarations of Ségolène Royal that are offensive," he said. "But those of Sarkozy about Spain, Merkel etc."

Into Monday and the debate still raged, this time with a former Socialist party education minister and culture minister, Jack Lang, stepping into the fray.

"I want to say to our Spanish friends, 'forgive her'," he said on national radio.

"How can one react to unsubstantiated rumours that have even been denied by those who were present at the meal and write to the prime minister of Spain 'in the name of France'?" he asked.

"It's completely disproportionate and inadequate," said Lang describing Royal's behaviour as a "faux pas".

So what is everyone supposed to make of Royal's actions?

Perhaps the answer lies in a report made by François-Xavier Bourmaud, a political journalist for the centre-right national daily, Le Figaro.

While the debate continues over whether Royal was right or wrong to do what she did, one thing is for certain. She is back in the limelight and once again using the tactic of "provocation" - a strategy that has proven to be typical of her behaviour in the past, according Bourmaud.

"She lost the leadership battle (in December) but with 50 per cent of the membership behind her she still has a voice that counts - as the polemic surrounding her current statements proves." he says.

"When François Hollande (her former partner) was leader of the party, he responded 'what do you expect me to do? She doesn't behave in the same way politically as the rest of us.' And now the party is seeing yet again that she refuses to play the political game in the same way as the rest of them," he added.

"But in the long term it could help her to establish herself as being far and away the strongest opponent (to Sarkozy) because in two years when the Socialist party is choosing its candidate, it'll probably be based on a series of polemic and one thing is certain - Royal is not going to stop."

DSK for president - in 2012?

Tuesday's left-of-centre French national daily, Libération, published a poll that apparently makes Dominique Strauss-Kahn the front runner for the Socialist party's nomination for the 2012 presidential race.

It also says that a majority of the French would like to see the selection of the party's candidate in 2012 open up to more than just its 233,000 card carrying members.

All right, so the real race itself might be a long way off, but that hasn't stopped the ever-divided French Socialist party from continued internal bickering ever since its candidate in 2007, Ségolène Royal, lost out to Nicolas Sarkozy in the second round of voting.

But Libération's poll seems to indicate that DSK - as he's usually known here - is in with a shout when he returns from his stint as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

And indeed the paper goes as far as to suggest that he's the front runner among the French as a whole regardless of party affiliation.

Of those polled, 28 per cent plumped for DSK.

The outcome though was slightly different when those who declared themselves Left of Centre or Socialists were asked their opinion.

Coming out on top with 25 per cent (Left) and 26 per cent (party members) was none other than Royal once again.

The poll, carried out by Viavoice, also looked at how the French felt about the options open to the Socialist party as it seeks to overcome internal divisions that have characterised it since Royal was nominated as its candidate back in 2007 and came to a head when she went up against Martine Aubry for the leadership of the party last November.

It asked whether the party should choose a future nominee by opening up the vote to a wider base by holding "primaries" along the lines of the US presidential selection process, or stick with the current "members only" procedure.

It's something the party's current leadership is reportedly "considering" changing to ensure its nominee has the widest possible appeal.

But hang on a moment.

As Laurent Ruquier, a well-known radio and television presenter said on his daily round-table radio show yesterday, there could be more to Libération's report and "commissioned" poll than first meets the eye.

Why should anyone outside of the party be consulted as to who they thought would make the best candidate in the first place, he asked.

Ruquier pointed out that the paper had "conveniently" blurred the Socialist party's current modus operandi by introducing a "spurious" concept - that of non-party members getting a say in choosing the candidate in the first place.

He also questioned the "spin" the paper had put on the "findings" of the poll - by appearing to put in a good word in for DSK who has been "absented" from the domestic political scene ever since Sarkozy nominated him to be the head honcho at the IMF.

In fact Ruquier went so far as to call the poll a "lot of nonsense" during his programme, and accused "friends of DSK" and Libération itself of being in cahoots to give a false impression of how popular the man is.

He said the poll and the report was a clear "manipulating of the figures to give the wrong impression."

Oh dear. And thing's had been rather quiet recently on the political front here recently as far as the Socialist party has been concerned.

Perhaps too quiet.

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.

France's Socialist party soap opera - explained - sort of

The Socialist party leadership "fiasco" is dominating the news in France at the moment, and is unlikely to be a story that goes away any time soon.

Martine Aubry says she's the new leader. Ségolène Royal refuses to accept the result.

So I thought, in the interests of trying to make the whole saga a little more understandable to readers outside of the country (and who knows perhaps some inside it too) I would try to tell the tale as to where (some of) the problems lie, as simply as possible.

The issue under scrutiny at the moment is the election process itself, which has undoubtedly been harmed by accusations from both sides of vote rigging and fraud, and would seem to be flawed.

But to understand how the party has managed to get itself into such a mess, you need to backtrack a little and look at what its leaders have been trying to do.

It's fundamentally about different visions of which direction the party should take politically of course. Move towards the centre or remain a party of the traditional left? A combination of the two would seem to be impossible.

But also involved are personalities - all of whom want to be leader (there's a surprise for politicians) with most finding themselves united mainly on one subject.

None of them (apart from the woman in question) wants a certain Ségolène Royal as either leader, or the party's chosen candidate for the 2012 presidential election

Their motto could well be "2007 was bad enough, and it's not a horror we want to live through again."

The main problem they have with her (apart from her popularity among the party's grass roots) is that she wants to make it more electable by moving it towards the centre ground and at the same time opening up its membership.


Cast of characters

Befitting any drama here's a cast of some of the leading characters involved.

First up there's Martine Aubry. She's the architect of this country's 35-hour working week interpreted as either a costly and disastrous policy or a just and fair opening up of the job market - depending on your political persuasion.

She's the daughter of Jacques Delors (former heavyweight French Socialist politician, and former president of the European Commission) and mayor of the northern city of Lille.

In case it had escaped your notice, Aubry is the newly elected leader of the Socialist party and has already made her "victory" and "acceptance" speech.

Martine Aubry declares victory

Then of course there's Ségolène Royal. She was the defeated Socialist party candidate in last year's presidential election, the bête noire, if you will, of most of the party's old guard and the only reason perhaps that there is a semblance of unity among the leaders.

And they include (along with Aubry) the following:

François Hollande is the outgoing (or now "outgone") leader of the Socialist party. He's the former long-time partner of Ségolène Royal - they split shortly after her electoral defeat last year - and father of their four children. Hollande has backed Delanoë and Aubry at different stages of the leadership battle.

Bertrand Delanoë - mayor of Paris and wannabe presidential candidate - a self declared "liberal Socialist" - he recently redefined the term "liberal".

Lionel Jospin - former Socialist prime minister, and failed presidential candidate in 2002, when the party disastrously failed to make it through to the second round. Fervent supporter of Bertrand Delanoë, Jospin could be termed the "Elton John" of French politics as he has "retired" and made many a comeback..

Benoît Hamon - young European parliamentarian. He was against the European constitution and is to the left of the party.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a former finance minister. He's currently head of the International Monetary Fund, but remains a heavyweight within the party, and would probably like to be its presidential candidate in 2012.

Laurent Fabius, former Socialist prime minister, one-time partner of none other than Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. He campaigned heavily against the European constitution. And most importantly, he really, really wants to lead the party and be its presidential candidate in 2012.

Jack Lang is a former culture minister from way back when, and bears a striking resemblance to Rolling Stone, Keith Richards. A perennial of the French political scene, he changes his support to which ever candidate looks to be the likely winner.

There are of course many other players involved but these are perhaps the most instantly recognisable ones.

They might each have their own egos and many harbour desires to lead the party and perhaps the country, but one thing unites them. They don't want Royal in charge.


Changing the rules

And that is at the heart of the current wrangling that is going on. Indeed, in a sense the problem is all of the party's own creation - and here's how.

Before party members voted last month on whose programme they would prefer, Hollande and all the rest agreed that whichever one came out on top would form the basis of agreement for the others in presenting just one candidate and one platform at last weekend's conference in Rheims.

It was supposed to come up with one name for party members to vote for on Thursday.

Well we all know what happened. Royal's programme came first - against all the odds.

Suddenly the party decided to "change the rules" and said that as her programme hadn't won a majority of votes first time around it had no legitimacy and the platform offered by Aubry, Delanoë or Hamon, were the ones on which everyone should be voting. No longer was it enough to be in first place, but a majority was needed to create that much sought after consensus.

Royal followed the original rule to the letter and tried to use her programme (which had come first) as the basis upon which to build agreement with each of the others.

None of them wanted to know and couldn't agree among themselves which of each other's platforms to support.

Hamon said he would stand, Delanoë decided not to (fully expecting Aubry not to) and then at the very last moment, Aubry said she would. The mayor of Lille had outwitted the mayor of Paris in the smartest of political manouevres and now looked the most likely to "save" the party from Royal.

So members were faced with three possible candidates Aubry, Royal and Hamon.

After Hamon was eliminated on Thursday's vote, members were asked to vote again on Friday to choose between the two women - a process which Royal criticised on national television on Saturday evening, saying it had been ridiculous to ask members to vote in a second round a day after the first.

Ségolène Royal

Rigged, fraudulent and flawed

The problem with the vote has been made all the more crucial of course by the closeness of the official result - Aubry receiving just 42 more than her opponent.

Both sides are contesting the way in which votes were counted and there have been accusations of "lost" ballots or mistakes having been made in transmitting the final figures to party HQ in Paris.

Party officials in the overseas territory of New Caledonia for example, say their votes weren"t included at all (Royal 13, Aubry 3).

In one section in eastern France, the figures of 18 votes for Royal and six for Aubry, were muddled and sent the wrong way round for the final count.

In the south west of the country, local party officials have also admitted mistakes in votes being transcribed - this time 41 more votes being registered for Royal than had been cast for her, and Aubry officially receiving 11 fewer than had been cast.

Royal is calling for a rerun of the vote, Aubry still says there's no need for one, and in her "victory acceptance" speech on Saturday evening stressed that the party was bigger than one individual - a non-too heavily disguised attack on Royal.

A special committee of parliamentary members of the party is due to convene after the weekend to check and validate the results.

Is all that clear? As mud perhaps.

Aubry wins French Socialist leadership battle - just

Martine Aubry has won the battle to become the new leader of the French Socialist party by the narrowest of margins.

Just 42 votes separated her from rival Ségolène Royal, and it wasn't until the final votes had been counted in the wee hours of Saturday morning that party officials confirmed Aubry as the winner.

The final result after a night of counting and declarations of victory from both sides at one time or another - 50.02 per cent (or 67,413 votes) for Aubry and 49.98 per cent (or 67,371 votes) for Royal.

If you thought that was the end of the story, and that the party would now unite behind one figure - especially as it has spent so much of its recent past involved in infighting - then you could be in for something of a nasty surprise.

The margin of victory was so narrow that it hardly acts as a ringing endorsement for Aubry as leader, especially as only 137,116 (or 58.87 per cent) of the 233,000 card carrying members actually voted.

And Royal has reacted to the result with claims of "fraud" in the counting, vote rigging throughout the polling, and a call for there to be a rerun of the vote next Thursday.

Her supporters are also demanding that the counting methods in Aubry's strongholds around the country be re-examined.

Although they were unwilling to pin point exactly in which ones, they've stressed that polling was still going on in the North (Aubry is mayor of the northern city of Lille) as results (favouring Royal) were coming in from the south.

Manuel Valls, one of Royal's closest supporters told public television's lunchtime news programme on Saturday that there had obviously been fraud and vote rigging involved, and that the election, rather than being a victory for Aubry had been one snatched from Royal.

He also decried the treatment Royal had received in the run-up to the party's conference in Rheims last weekend and said holding a second sound of voting just one day after the first, had been a ridiculous way for the party to try to elect a new leader.

The outgoing leader of the party François Hollande is expected to convene a committee of parliamentary members of the party to check and validate the results, although as far as Aubry's camp is concerned, she's the winner and "there's no need for further scrutiny."

Anyone who has watched the Socialist party tear itself apart from within over the past decade or so, will perhaps not be at all surprised by this latest twist in the tale.

Many within the French media were already wondering whether the party would be able to recover from internal bickering before the vote and emerge with a result that would present a united front encompassing Royal's wish to take it more to the centre and Aubry's declared intention to "uphold leftist values".

The result - which although a win for Aubry - is to all intents and purposes a tie, with the big question now remaining as to whether the party can continue in its present form.

So perhaps this is just the end of the story "so far" in a saga that looks set to run and run.

French Socialists get their maths wrong in leadership battle

The leadership battle for France's Socialist party should be decided tonight, and it'll see two women vying for the job - Ségolène Royal and Martine Aubry.

In Thursday's vote among the party's 233,000 card carrying members, none of the three candidates achieved the magical 50 per cent needed to claim victory.

The result of Thursday's vote: Royal - 43.1 per cent, Aubry - 34.5 per cent, and Benoît Hamon 22.83 per cent.

So as many predicted Royal and Aubry will go head to head in a re-vote today.

But hang about. Isn't there something just a tad strange in those figures? Anyone who has been following the Socialist party soap opera will surely be asking themselves what on earth is Royal still doing in the race?

Ah well it's all about the fact that complicated politics and simple maths don't always go together.

Let me (try to) explain and recap simultaneously.

In what has by any standards been one of the most protracted processes for choosing a new leader, party members will once again vote on whose vision of the future of the party they support.

Crudely put, a move to the centre - as proposed by Royal, or more traditionally left as Aubry wants.

A couple of weeks ago the party took its first step in supposedly determining its future direction when members voted on the so-called "motions" or programmes.

It wasn't a vote on the leadership per se, but on the alternative programmes - although both were and of course still are inextricably linked.

You might remember that Royal surprised most political pundits when her programme came top. It garnered 29 per cent of the vote followed by Aubry's and that of the mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë - both gained 25 per cent, and in fourth place Benoît Hamon's with 18 per cent.

So four programmes with a chance of winning overall approval and paving the way for a new leader to be "crowned".

That was the expectation going into the party's conference last weekend in Rheims, especially as everyone agreed that what the Socialists needed most was "unity" and that could best be achieved by rallying behind one programme and therefore one candidate.

Aubry and Hamon looked to be on the verge of reaching an agreement. They didn't. Aubry and Delanoë also tried to iron out their differences, but with the same non-result.

None of the others really wanted to "be friends" with Royal, although she apparently tried hard enough, sending them personalised letters and encouraging them to "come aboard".

They didn't. The only surprise being perhaps that after a weekend of "burning the midnight oil" Delanoë withdrew from the leadership battle (by not entering it), but refused to endorse any of the others.

So the party came away from the conference with the choice of three candidates, and it was up to party members to choose between them.

The very next day there was a coup de théâtre as Delanoë changed his mind - not about standing, but about who he would endorse - Aubry. And he urged his supporters to vote for her "massively".

So the maths looked quite simple. Aubry's 25 per cent, plus Delanoë's 25 per cent with hopefully some others joining the non-declared TSS ("Tout-sauf-Ségolène" or "Anything but Ségolène") campaign and bingo. Surely a shoo-in for Aubry.

"Outrageous" claimed Royal over the coming days. Underhand tactics she implied, and although she never actually said it overtly, once again evidence of another cleverly played TSS campaign.

Hamon meanwhile took the moral high ground and criticised everyone, saying he wasn't going to be part of it, and therefore he was the natural choice of leader (all right so a tiny bit of paraphrasing going on here in the interests of making a long story less long).

But in spite of seemingly simple sums, as Thursday's results show, it didn't quite turn out the way Aubry, Delanoë and the rest had hoped

The next twist of course is that Hamon has now turned around and urged his supporters to vote "massively" for.......wait for it......Aubry.

So once again the maths would appear to indicate that it's game, set and match for Aubry. After all 34.5 plus 22.83 would give her more than the 50 per cent needed for victory.

But remember her opponent is Ségolène Royal - discounted by most from the start, and apparently the person everyone in the party wants to beat, but has so far been unable to.

When she ran for the party's nomination to be the presidential candidate last year, she was up against the might and power of its old guard "elephants". But her appeal to the grass roots eventually saw her nomination reluctantly "endorsed" by all her opponents.

So who would bet against her defying the pundits (and the maths) once again?

One thing's for certain, it'll be a woman leading the party - the first time one has been elected to that position here in France.

Whatever the result though, what it probably won't do is stop the internal bickering as whichever woman wins, there will still remain a sizeable chunk of the party disillusioned with the outcome.

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.

Royal keeps everyone guessing in the battle to lead France's Socialist party

It's surely not as immediately gripping as the recent US election and Barack Obama's history-making win, but once again there's a twist in political events here in France as Séglolène Royal takes perhaps another (distant) step towards becoming the first female elected head of State of a G8 country.

On Sunday the French Socialists are expected to endorse both a political programme and a new leader when party activists gather in the northern city of Rheims, and Royal has not counted herself out of the running.

The formal vote among the party's 233,000 card-carrying members will not take place until next Thursday (November 20) but the weekend's conference should settle the ongoing battle by picking just one candidate for the post.

On Wednesday evening Royal appeared live on French television during the TF1's prime time news broadcast and said that she "would like" to be the Socialist party's next leader.

It wasn't exactly Royal excitedly throwing her hat into the ring and declaring her intention to run in the race to elect a new leader (or chairman/woman) but it was the next best thing.

And her appearance has kept everyone guessing about the likely outcome, whether she'll be able to reach an agreement with other pretenders to the post to back her, or the possible appearance of a compromise candidate behind whom the party can rally as it tries yet again to overcome internal bickering and refocus on being in its own words "an effective opposition".

Tuning in last night viewers were probably expecting Royal to give a clear "yes" or "no" as to whether she would be standing in this weekend's election. She didn't - but she also didn't rule anything out.

"Party members have already voted and given a legitimacy to the programme I put forward," she said.

"And I'll say quite frankly that 'yes' I would like to be the leader. But plenty of people have said that I'm not a woman of who fits comfortably into the party apparatus, and that's true in the sense that I prefer direct contact with the people than being ruled by the party machine," she admitted.

"The thing I would like to do is have the party move forward with the team I've assembled, but above all I would like be able to unite the party," Royal continued.

"I've met Bertrand (Delanoë) and Martine (Aubry) and others to listen to what they have to say, because the party members haven't voted to count anyone out of the running but for us to put our collective talents together to unite the party."

You might remember that Royal was the party's candidate in last year's presidential election.

In losing to Nicolas Sarkozy she garnered almost 47 per cent or over 16 million votes, overcoming deep divisions within the party, which re-emerged after the campaign as the internal bickering and "blame" for yet another electoral loss dominated.

After her defeat, Royal took time to lick her wounds, metaphorically speaking, rebuild her base of support and then launched upon a campaign for the leadership of the party - when her former partner of more than 20 years, François Hollande, announced that he would be standing down.

But her chances of making headway seemed doomed when her main rival for the post and current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, won the backing of many of the party's powerful old guard (or so-called elephants) when he declared that he was up for the job.

His supporters included Hollande and a former Socialist prime minister and presidential candidate, Lionel Jospin.

Another potential contender - Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been shipped off by Sarkozy to become head of the International Monetary Fund, and while Royal's popularity "waned", Martine Aubry, daughter of the former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors, and architect of the 35-hour working week here in France, emerged as the most likely challenger to Delanoë.

Are you still following?

By the summer of this year surveys showed that what had orignally appeared a two horse race between Delanoë and Royal had in fact become a likely win for Delanoë, with even Aubry outdistancing Royal in the polls.

The most likely outcome as far as most political commentators were concerned was Delanoë as the party's next leader, and so it seemed going into last week when party activists chose whose "vision" for the future they liked most.

It was the first step in the process that should end with the endorsement of a programme and a new leader on Sunday, and the formal vote next Thursday.

To everyone's surprise, Royal's programme came in first - a narrow win, but a win nonetheless - and it put her very much back in the driving seat.

Would she now, as she had previously promised to do if her proposals won the day, seek to become the party's next leader and, as she had always maintained, use the position as a platform for that presiential bid in 2012?

Apparently she would stand according to the much respected national daily Le Monde, at the beginning of this week.

Royal remained silent, and even when she appeared on television last night the odds were fairly stacked in favour of here making that announcement.

Once again though she seems to have learnt from past mistakes and is playing the game to her advantage. Royal knows she holds the balance of power - so-to-speak. None of the programmes of the four main contenders (there is also Benoît Hamon) has enough support to be the outright winner, and needs the backing of one of the other camps.

Of course a compromise candidate whose programme is a combination of two or more existing ones might still appear behind whom the party faithful could rally and there's likely to be even more behind the scenes last-minute haggling.

All right so the next presidential election here isn't due until 2012 (should be a busy year with presidential elections scheduled in both France and the US, and the Olympics hitting London) and Royal narrowly missed out on making history last year when she lost to Sarkozy.

But it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that she could still become the first elected female head of state of a G8 country, and perhaps for that alone it's worth the "heads up" - to use the appropriate Internet vernacular.

There'll be an update for anyone out there who's still interested and still awake after wading through this as to whether on Sunday, the conference actually endorses one candidate and one programme.

Royal upset in battle to lead French Socialist party

Sometimes it can pay to be a maverick and not toe the party line, as last year's defeated Socialist party candidate in the French presidential election, Ségolène Royal, proved on Thursday.

Against all expectations, party activists here have given the thumbs up to Royal's programme of reform for the future of the party.

And her success has rather thrown a spanner in the works ahead of next weekend's conference to choose a new leader.

On Thursday, party activists around the country voted on whose "vision" for the future they liked most.

It was step one in a rather protracted process that will end with the election of a new party leader - again only by members - next weekend in the northern French city of Rheims.

Although nobody secured a majority in yesterday's vote, Royal's programme garnered 29 per cent, beating one from Bertrand Delanoë, the current mayor of Paris, and another programme from Martine Aubry into second place. They both mustered around 25 per cent each.

Royal's programme includes reaching out to the grass roots and broadening the party's appeal - perhaps by once again making overtures to François Bayrou's centre MoDem party.

She tried that once before during last year's presidential election, but Bayrou - then a member of the centre-right Union pour la Démocratie Française (Union for French Democracy,UDF) - turned her down.

Delanoë and Aubry - the architect of this country's 35-hour working week, both reject any alliance with a party that isn't "clearly Left".

For the past couple of months Delanoë had seemed far and away the most likely to receive the nod - not only for his programme but also for next weekend's election of a new leader.

So much so that when Royal announced in a television interview last month that she was taking herself out of the running by putting her bid to be leader "on hold", many viewed it as another way of saying she was giving in to the inevitable.

At the time though, she refused to be drawn on the issue of whether she would stand, insisting that first there should be the vote on the party programme, and based on that result she would make a decision. Royal also urged the other candidates to do the same.

Little did anyone realise that her move would have some resonance among the party's grass roots membership.

Least of all perhaps her former partner and current leader of the party, François Hollande, who is standing down after 11 years in the job, and had thrown his weight behind Delanoë.

Prior to Thursday's vote Hollande, safe in the "knowledge" that all opinion polls seems to point towards Delanoë's programme winning, or at worst being challenged only by Aubry's, had even suggested that whichever one "came first" would be a clear signal as to how the party should progress in the run up to the next presidential election and who the candidate would be.

In fact most people within the party and certainly much of the media, had pretty much written off Royal's chances of pulling off a win, and Hollande is now singing quite a different tune and using the fact that nobody secured a clear majority (far from it) to do something of an about turn on where he - and more importantly the party - stands.

"It's not the simplest scenario for the party," he told reporters on Friday morning. "The problem is not the order of (of the programmes) but how to ensure that the programme can get a majority backing within the party."

So what does this mean for the future of the party?

Well first up, it's yet again a clear indication that a party which everyone, including its membership, admits has been in disarray even before Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidential election last year and started cherry-picking some of its most high profile members for jobs in government or international organisations, still has a long way to go before it can hope to show some of that much yearned for unity.

And of course over the next week there's likely to be a fair bit of horse trading in the run-up to the crucial vote in Rheims.

But one thing seems certain. For all of those who had thought Royal had no role to play - they were wrong, and for once, she is proving herself capable of playing a waiting game.

In what can only be seen as an unaccustomed statement from Royal, she opted for the measured approach.

"The result has given me and my programme a legitimacy (within the party) she said on Friday.

"But I don't want to declare myself a candidate for the post of leader until I've spoken to all the others (who had put forward programmes."

Interesting times - well if you follow French politics.

Sarkozy's voodoo doll remains on shop shelves

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has failed in his attempt to have a voodoo doll in his image withdrawn from circulation.

A Paris court has ruled that it can remain on sale.

Sarkozy had instructed his lawyers to file a law suit claiming that the doll was a "misuse of the president's image" and demanding it be withdrawn.

But on Wednesday a court ruled that the "non-authorised representation of the image of Nicolas Sarkozy neither constituted an affront on the human dignity (of the president) nor a personal attack."

The doll, as reported here, comes as part of a kit, complete with 12 needles and an instruction manual on how to use it.

It includes such delightful quotes, characteristic and policy decisions from the French president such as; "The end of advertising on public television, "Work more to earn more" or the infamous faux pas during his visit to the annual agricultural fair earlier this year when he told a visitor who refused to shake his hand to "Get lost you stupid (expletive deleted)" and invites users to stick pins in the appropriate place.

It has been on sale since the beginning of October, but through his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, Sarkozy had protested that he had exclusive rights to his own image.

While acknowledging that the doll hardly represented to best of taste, the court maintained that users couldn't "take seriously the procedure and believe that they were indeed practising voodoo."

It also stressed that both Sarkozy and his opponent in last year's presidential run-off, Ségèlone Royal (who also has a similar doll on sale) had both put played heavily to the electorate in terms of focussing on their public image as part of their promotional campaign.

Royal - who had not taken legal action against the manufacturers - said that she welcomed the court's decision as "good news".

K&B, the company which has manufactured and distributed the manuals and dolls (Sarkozy - 20,000, Royal, 15,000) will be allowed to continue selling the items.

Herzog has not yet said whether Sarkozy will be appealing the court's ruling.

Royal makes surprising appeal in race to elect new French Socialist leader

The battle to find a new leader of the French Socialist party took an unexpected twist on Monday evening, when one of the candidates, Ségolène Royal, called on all potential contenders to put aside any ambitions they had for the position and instead concentrate on policy issues.

Speaking on prime time news on French television Royal said the country was in need of a credible and united opposition to the current government's policies.

"You would have to be both blind and deaf not to realise that disillusionment is increasing among the French," she said.

"Things are not going well in France and where are the Socialists?", she asked.

"What are we doing? We're having a battle for different positions within the party.

"I would like to put a stop to this slow but sure descent of the party and the level of debate," she added.

"And I propose that everyone 'shelves' questions of their candidature at the Congress (in November) or worse for the presidential nomination because there are still several years until that happens."

Now this might seem a somewhat surprising move by Royal - as it is she who has always linked both leadership of the party with a future presidential bid.

Indeed after her defeat to Nicolas Sarkozy in last year's election - she was the party's nominated candidate - Royal made it clear that she had almost 47 per cent of the electorate behind her and would make the natural successor to her former partner François Hollande as leader of the party.

He's stepping down after 11 years in the job, and at the party's congress in November activists will get to choose a replacement.

Royal has also in the past maintained that the leader of the party would make the most obvious choice as the candidate for a presidential bid in 2012.

To some then - especially her critics, and there are plenty of them both within the party and outside - she seems to have done something of a U-turn.

And even her declaration or call doesn't exactly appear to be lacking in doublespeak, which the country's media has been quick to point out.

How, many wonder, can she request "pretenders" to Hollande's post put aside their differences for the moment and not appear to be campaigning for the leadership race, but at the same time not rule herself out completely?

Well that's all part of her strategy, it has been suggested, in trying to appeal to the grass roots of the party. After all, it's the members, and not the country as a whole, who will be deciding the party's future leader.

Royal has seen her popularity slip over the past couple of months, and is well behind the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, and even Martine Aubry, the mayor of Lille, according to the most recent opinion polls.

By appealing directly to the grass roots membership of the party and presenting herself as "being above the fray" Royal is perhaps hoping instead that she will be seen the symbol of unity in a party that has been divided by internal bickering for several years.

In spite of the head scratching her comments may have created, she's not being as inconsistent as might at first appear. In May, Royal said that she would be a candidate to succeed Hollande, "If party activists showed they also supported the proposals we are putting forward."

And that's exactly what she repeated on Monday - first the party would vote on a number of motions put before Congress (on November 6) and based on those results she would decide whether to stand for the leadership.

The (apparent change in) strategy will probably not win her many friends among the party's old guard, but there again Royal has never been one to run shy of a battle with them.

But if she wanted a sign that her call would probably fall on deaf ears, Royal only had to wait 24 hours as Hollande threw his backing behind Delanoë after the two men met on Tuesday evening.

Delanoe throws his hat into the ring in the race to lead France's Socialists

As of yesterday it's official. The current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has declared he's running to become the next leader of this country's Socialist party.

It hasn't perhaps been the best kept secret here in France, as his name hasn't been far out of the headlines for most of this year as a potential successor to the current incumbent François Hollande.

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At the end of July a poll in the national daily newspaper, Le Parisien, showed that party members put him ahead in the race to become their next leader.

So why then is Delanoë's declaration so important? And what are its possible implications?

Well to start off with it's the manner in which he made his announcement

There was no razzamatazz, none of the "bling bling" that seems to have pervaded French politics since the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, first came to office 15 months ago, and no apparent desire to resort to verbal fisticuffs (in this instance at least) with his main rival for the job, Ségolène Royal.

She, you might remember, was the party's defeated candidate in last year's presidential elections.

Mind you, that's not to say the Delanoë has been averse to making scathing comments about Royal in the past. We are after all talking politics here. Among other things Delanoë has accused her of running a directionless (presidential) campaign last year and holds her partly responsible for the malaise in which the Socialist party now finds itself.

Delanoë has prepared the groundwork for his long awaited official announcement very carefully.

He let one of his main political backers, the former prime minister and failed presidential candidate back in 2002, Lionel Jospin, do all the legwork earlier in the year on a national level, when he was prevented from doing so because he was running for re-election as mayor of Paris.

Then towards the end of campaigning in those local elections, the ever media-savvy Delanoë (and let's face it, that's a pretty important component of 21st century politicking) appeared head-to-head on national television with his main rival for the capital's top job, Françoise de Panafieu of the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP).

And then the crowning glory (so far) with the release at the end of May of his book “De l’audace” in which he set out some of his visions for the future of Socialism in France.

While Tuesday's announcement probably didn't exactly come as a shock, choosing to do so in an interview with one of the country's most respected newspapers, Le Monde, perhaps sent a signal that Delanoë wanted to make a break from staged photo ops which have characterised French politics recently.

So why is Delanoë's declaration important? Well the malaise in which the Socialist party finds itself is undeniable - even they admit it, in spite of a relatively strong showing in March's local elections.

The Socialists are riven by political infighting (of which Delanoe hasn't exactly been guiltless) and there's a battle on for the future direction of the party. It's at more perhaps than a crossroads, and if it doesn't unite behind one leader, some political commentators have suggested there could be a split.

Part of that is probably down to Sarkozy of all people, who has done a pretty good job of dividing and conquering. He has invited prominent Socialists into government such as the foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and the junior minister for urban policy, Fadela Amara. Or he has successfully recommended them for high level jobs overseas such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the International Monetary Fund.

There's talk in the media that some factions of the party might consider a possible realignment with the Communist party which took a hammering in the national and local elections, and the far Left of Olivier Besancenot's La Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Communist League, LCR).

And then of course there's Royal, who has spoken about perhaps moving the party closer to the Centre and a more populist “listening and hearing” approach to politics.

Delanoë firmly rejects any sort of alliance - even with MoDem, the centre party, and in recently outlining his vision for the future of the party called on it to embrace economic liberalism and to accept the principle of competition – long a taboo to many on the Left.

For many, especially among the party faithful, Delanoë represents the future of the Socialist party. The 58-year-old is often accused of having a somewhat autocratic style and often portrayed as a control freak, but some think those are the very strengths needed to hold the party together and provide an effective oppostion.

Finally and probably not most importantly, Delanoë is openly gay. Perhaps that's not an issue - it certainly hasn't been during his tenure as mayor of Paris - but it could become a point picked up by the international media should he become the party's leader and its eventual presidential candidate in 2012, for no other reason than it reflects a change in attitudes and acceptance towards sexuality within France and abroad over the past couple of decades.

So now he's thrown his hat in the ring, we only have to wait until November to see how he fares. There's a whole gaggle of pretenders to the crown - declared and yet to declare. But at the moment it seems that it's very much Delanoë who's in the driving seat.

Only party activists get to vote in November's election, and that's a fact of which he's very much aware.

But in four year's time, come the presidential race, it'll be the country that votes. And Delanoë will surely want to have the popular base of support, not only from which to launch a powerful campaign against Sarkozy (should he decide to run for re-election) but also to take him all the way to the Elysée palace.

France's top 50 favourites "French" of course. What else did you expect?

Here's a test for some of you Francophiles out there. Who do you think the most popular (French) person in France is?

Well twice a year the national Sunday newspaper, Le Journal du Dimanche, JDD, publishes a list of this country's 50 most popular "celebrities". The inverted commas are there to stress how broad a term that is - encompassing figures from the world of sports, entertainment and heaven help us, politics.

Twice a year perhaps, not because there's that much difference between the two polls, but it sure does fill a few column inches, sets tongues a-wagging and provides some simple filler fodder for television and radio news bulletin, when there's not much else about.

And once again - just as he was last December - it's former tennis ace-turned singer and musician Yannick Noah, who is this country's most popular person.

Now you might not initially give two hoots about who the French consider to be their favourite person. But hang about a moment, because in a sense it reveals quite a lot about the country, the people and the way they think, if for nothing more than the sheer diversity of the people listed.

Tennis ace

Noah's father was a professional footballer for the Cameroon and his mother the daughter of a French poet.

It was his tennis career that first put him on the map, winning the French Open at Roland Garros back in 1983, endearing him to many in France by bringing pride to the nation as a Frenchman winning on home turf (or better said clay). He twice steered the French team as captain to victory in the Davis Cup and in the 1990s reinvented himself as a musician and singer with the first in a string of hit albums and singles.

Twice married with five children - one of whom, Joakim plays for the Chicago Bulls in the NBA - Noah perhaps represents much of what the French love about their "stars". He is an individual who has succeeded in more than one sphere and is not afraid to speak his mind.

He has been an outspoken defender of the rights of immigrants, humanitarian causes and the environment as well as being politically engaged and critical of the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement UMP) party.

In last year's presidential election he openly supported the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, and told the media he would be "profoundly disappointed" if Nicolas Sarkozy were to win.

Box office hit

Figuring for the first time in the poll as the country's second most popular figure is the actor, comedian and director Dany Boon.

Again another multi-talented person (seemingly a French speciality as many stars shine in more than one field) Boon's latest film, Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, became the country's largest grossing domestic box office hit ever when it was released in February this year, attracting more than 20 million cinema goers.

Again that says a lot about the French, who are not exactly renowned for being able to laugh at themselves. The film illustrates with a great deal of humour, the differences between those living in the "cold, wet north" and their virtually impenetrable dialect with those from the "hot, sunny south" of the country.

It's not the French laughing "at" those from the north (where Boon was born and brought up) but "with" them, challenging the established clichés and prejudices.

Of course it's a formula guaranteed to work abroad. The rights have already been sold to Italy. And in the United States, look out for actor Will Smith to Hollywood-it up.

Zizou, the environmentalist and the top woman

Retired football international, and arguably one of the world's greatest players ever, Zinedine Zidane, ranks third in the new poll.

Whatever he may have done during the closing minutes of the 2006 World Cup final in Germany, "Zizou", as he is affectionately known here, remains an idol for many of the country's youth and a favourite among the French in general and has held the top spot several times over the years.

At number 4 in the rankings is a man probably not too well known outside of France, - the environmentalist, ecologist and TV presenter, Nicolas Hulot.

Against all odds perhaps, he somehow managed to get politicians in last year's presidential elections to sign a pledge saying they would make environmental issues an essential element in any of their policy decisions should they be elected.

Rounding out the top five is the first woman - a perennial favourite in this country, in the shape of the diminutive, Mimie Mathy - star of a popular television series, comdienne, singer and all-round entertainer.

Top favourites

In the 20 years that the poll has been going, only five different people have occupied the number one slot, proving perhaps that once the French take someone to their hearts, they're unwilling and unlikely to drop them.

And none of the most revered five has been Posh 'n Becks or Brangelina types figures.

Topping the list for more than a decade were two men. Either the French naval office, explorer, ecologist, fimaker, scientist, photographer - you name it he seems to have done it - the late Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Or L'Abbé Pierre.

In fact when the newspaper decided to commission the "top of the tops" so-to-speak, it was L'Abbé Pierre who came out ahead - just.

And few in this country will forget the tributes paid to him last year when he died at the age of 94.

During his life, the Catholic priest (born Henri Grouès) was not only a member of the French resistance in the Second World War, but a member of parliament, a champion of the poor, the homeless and of refugees.

In 1949 he founded the Emmaus charity here in France, a concept for providing accommodation and employment for otherwise homeless people and "recycling" a number of what might otherwise be considered "useless" products.

In France, if you have a table for example that you no longer need, don't throw it out, but donate it to Emmaus instead, they'll sell it on and put the money to good use.

L'Abbé Pierre was, and still is, the "voice and the conscience" of the poor for many here in France.

The only other three French (men - as a woman has yet make the number one slot) to top the poll have all been sportsmen. As well as Noah and Zizou of course, there has been multi world and Olympic judo champion, David Douillet.

Best of the rest

Among other notable names that might strike a chord outside of France in this latest Top 50 is the recently sacked prime time news anchor Patrick Poivre d'Avoir, PPDA (15).

He still remains popular in spite of what his former employer TF1 might think. PPDA's replacement in the autumn, the golden girl of television news, Laurence Ferrari (48), makes her first appearance in the top 50.

Among politicians, it's Ingrid Betancourt (21) , much in the headlines after her release last month by FARC and also making her first appearance in the list, who is the highest placed, well ahead of Sarkozy (44) and Royal (49).

In between the two "finalists" for last year's French presidential race is another face from the world of (French) politics, the 34-year-old leader and spokesman of the far left, Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, Olivier Besancenot (45). Now that certainly speaks volumes about how the French view their politicians.

And squeezing in to the top 50 for the very first time is Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, officially defined in the poll as a "singer"

Delanoë leads polls ahead of November election.

No sorry, this isn't the US presidential vote scheduled for the autumn - perhaps it's time for a breather from that for a moment - but instead the decision by France's opposition Socialist party as to who's going to take over as leader of the party and be the likely candidate in the 2012 presidential elections.

It's a vote also slated for November, when the party faithful will gather in Reims to elect a successor to the current chairman, François Hollande.

And there are two "presumptive" front runners eager for endorsement.

First up of course is Ségolène Royal, last year's defeated candidate in the presidential election where she lost in the second round run-off to Nicolas Sarkozy.

And then there's Bertrand Delanoë, the current mayor of Paris, and he comes complete with the backing of one of the party's "elephants" or old guard, Lionel Jospin.

While Royal has long been seen as the likely "pretender" to that most uncomfortable of thrones - a party riven by internal bickering and not helped by Sarkozy cherry picking some of its best known figures for his government - a survey in the national daily Le Parisien, suggests that Delanoë is now (just) ahead in the race to succeed Hollande.

Delanoë, who is widely reputed to be authoritarian in his approach and something of a control freak, has in the past been highly critical of Royal.

While recognising that the Socialist party has been in something of a malaise for several years, Delanoë has insisted that the party didn’t do itself any favours in choosing Royal as its candidate in last year’s presidential elections, even going so far as to accuse her of having run a directionless campaign.

He also firmly rejects any sort of alliance with MoDem, the centre party, and in a recent book outlined his "vision" for the future of the Socialist party, somewhat surprisingly perhaps calling for it to embrace economic liberalism and to accept the principle of competition – long a taboo to many on the Left.

Indeed Delanoë proudly claimed to be a “liberal” himself in the true humanitarian sense of the word of course, and insisted that it had long been a principle abused and misused by the centre-right.

Having Jospin as a backer doesn't seem to have done Delanoë much harm so far. And that's saying something. The former prime minister and unsuccessful Socialist party presidential candidate back in 2002 (when he didn't even make it into the second round run-off leaving the country reeling as Far Right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen went head-to head with the then incumbent, Jacques Chirac) has twice "retired" from politics.

At 71 he now seems to have carved himself a rôle as "kingmaker" so much so that while Delanoë was restricted from being seen to campaign nationally earlier this year during the local elections (he successfully ran for re-election in the French capital) Jospin appeared on his behalf at rallies up and down the country.

For her part, Royal has admitted to mistakes made in last year’s presidential elections and has repeatedly said she wasn’t helped by the lack of real support she received from the party’s elephants, apart from the odd barbed comment and reluctant "pressing the flesh" sessions.

She believes in realigning the party with the centre and in the more populist “listening and hearing” approach to politics. In addition she has already made clear that for her, the leader of the party should also be the 2012 presidential candidate.

Although they're the favourites, Delanoë and Royal don't have the field to themselves. This is after all the Socialist party, which seems to believe that "unity" and "discord" are far from being mutually exclusive. There are a whole host of other candidates - declared or not - many well-known here in France, if not abroad.

Foremost among them are two names perhaps worth mentioning. There's the ex employment minister, Martine Aubry, architect of the 35-hour-working week (currently being dismantled brick by brick by Sarkozy) and daughter of the former president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors. And Manuel Valls the 45-year-old mayor of the Paris suburb of Evry.

Born in Barcelona, Spain, and a naturalised French citizen at the age of 20, Valls is perhaps somewhat in the mould of Britain's Tony Blair when it comes to how he sees the future of the Left in France.

And then of course there's one very important figure within the party, who won't be standing this time around simply because he can't.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn - another of the party's elephants - was neatly temporarily sidelined from national politics after he being nominated by Sarkozy - and approved - as head of the International Monetary Fund, IMF.

But he still manages to pop back from time to time to show his face among the party faithful, has a firm base of support among activists and, get this, his tenure at the IMF is scheduled to end just in time for the 2012 presidential elections here in France.

If a week is often quoted as being a long time in politics, then for both Royal and Delanoë, the next four months must seem like an eternity. At the moment neither has a majority of votes needed to become the next chairman - far from it - and there's likely to be a fair amount of behind the scenes horse trading especially after everyone returns from their summer breaks.

A very public display of infighting is probably the last thing the party can afford, but it's hard to imagine how it can reconcile its differences without airing its dirty linen in the full glare of the French media.

So if you need a break from Obama-McCain later this year - cast your gaze to this side of the Atlantic where there'll be another battle for the top (ish) - albeit perhaps on a slightly less grand scale although the outcome could be just as unpredictable.