On 21 févr. 07, at 20:28, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Well, between Royal and Sarkozy in the second round, I'd vote for her,
> too, but that's not the question I'm asking here. The question is
> where she has and is taking the SP and the country through her
> political campaign, which is itself part of political education.
Who knows ?
I have little hope for the SP itself. After all it is not the SP that stopped Juppé in 95. It is not the SP that made Chirac dissolve the parliament in 96. And it is not the SP that won the elections in 2002.
The SP was lucky that in 95, a few months after Chirac was elected, the alternative left was strong enough to organize massive strikes, it was very lucky that Chirac, out of sheer pride, decided to check if the French still "trusted" him, which led to the victory of the only left that is strong enough to take a majority of seats in the parliament, and it was very unlucky that Jopsin totally dismissed that alternative left that had put him in power, after 6 years of governing France.
If SP members chose Royal it is because they are sick of the utter inability of the SP "elephants" to work with and for the left. I am not convinced that Royal is unable to do so, even if she has her ways. And regarding Bové, he did not _have_ to declare his support to her the day he decided to run. He did what he did for 2 reasons I think. Him running means that the sectarian left will have even less votes. And him declaring his support for Royal means he actually encourages his hesitating supporters to _not_ vote for him and to go directly to Royal. His candidacy is a symbolic support of the alternative left to Royal. Center left groups and the "republican" left would rather surf the Royal wave right away and thus their candidates renounced and officially declared their support for her. I am not sure that would have happened with DSK or Fabius. And it did not with Jospin.
> In the absence of a strong challenge from the anti-liberal Left (imho,
> the anti-liberal left should have run José Bové as their unity
> candidate, but their sectarianism prevented them), Royal sought to
> distance herself and her campaign from the Left (even the SP itself),
I agree with you regarding Bové. If the anti-liberal left had managed to offer an alternative to the PS things would be different. And to tell you the truth, when Bové declared his candidacy I hesitated for an instant, but since he has no consequent organization to support him and since he declared his support to Royal right away -as a sign to the anti-liberal but hesitating left- it did not take me long to revert to my original choice.
> her youth and immigration policies being important signals sent to
> center-right voters that she is not beholden to the Left ("very
> conservative" elements are not "weird" if you see them in this
> context).
I think you are getting the message wrong. The proposals that were on the links you posted actually are a total reversal of immigration policy. It may not go as far as reverting to the status before the 93 Pasqua laws that _created_ illegal stayers but it sets a very clear path toward administrative recognition of illegal stayers who _live_ here. The complete opposite of what all the right governments have accomplished so far. And equally opposite to the totally arbitrary treatment immigrant families have been facing the last 12 months with Sarkozy's attack on immigrant children.
As for her policy toward the youth, I have yet to hear a politician who is more convincing regarding education, vocational training, first job policy, etc. Here again it is the total opposite of De Villepinte policies (remember the CPE ?).
Regarding military "training" for delinquents, since it seems to be the conservative item that is the most chocking to the left _and_ the right alike, read the comments of the groups that work in areas where delinquency/poverty are at the highest:
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/12022007/202/les-associations-de-quartier- jugent-royal-il-faut-aller-encore.html
That was right after the 2/11 presentation of her program. I'd argue the grass roots activists who know the youth are better placed to comment on such measures than politicians who never leave the centers of power.
> And when she tried to take a left tack with her economic
> promises of the presidential pact, her economic advisor, who evidently
> couldn't stomach inconsistency, quit acrimoniously.*
Besson announced today according to an article in Le Monde that he quit mostly because of personal reasons. Also, Besson is a jospinist but not all jospinists arer agains Royal:
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/11022007/202/segolene-royal-presente-son-
pacte-presidentiel-pour-relancer-sa-campagne.html
> Si Dominique Strauss-Kahn et Laurent Fabius se sont refusés à tout
> commentaire, leurs proches n'ont pas caché leur satisfaction.
>
> "C'est un discours qui a une vision, a déclaré Pierre Moscovici,
> proche de DSK. Les Français savent maintenant à quel choix de
> société ils sont appelés: ce sera vraiment la droite contre la
> gauche solidaire".
>
> Pour Elisabeth Guigou (jospiniste), "il y a à la fois une vision et
> des propositions, ce qu'il fallait faire, ça va remotiver tout le
> monde" et, selon Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, ce discours devrait
> provoquer "le rebond de la campagne".
> Royal may yet make a comeback, but, even if she wins, her campaign
> will not have helped to move French electoral politics (which is
> surprisingly conservative relative to the rates of participation in
> and approval of workers and students' strikes, demos, etc.) to left,
> more in line with French politics of streets.
This is what I am not sure about at all. I think all the time it took to organize more than 5000 local meetings to hear what people had to say about the country, to organize debates on the web and create proposals based on that, II think all that is a major departure from traditional campaigning but not only, I also thing that it prefigures what politicians in France will have to live with in the coming years if she is elected: become responsible representatives of the people who elected them.
Jean-Christophe