Royal has been using her region as a test-bed for the ideas that she will apply to France if she wins next May (The Times, 12/10/2006)
France's old-fashioned left can sleep easily. Ségolène Royal, the Socialist who is current favourite to win the French presidency next spring, likes Tony Blair, but she has little in common with the British prime minister apart from the charm and constant smile. I spent Monday watching Ségo in operation on her turf in the Poitou-Charentes, where she is boss of the regional council, and came away thinking that she would certainly bring a new style to the Elysée Palace, but not much real reform.
For months, Royal's party rivals have been demonising her as a Blair-like reformer who would dismantle the welfare state and expose France to the mercy of free markets. She has revealed almost nothing of her plans for the economy, but a glimpse of the Socialist star in her provincial job suggests that President Royal would keep business under a firm state hand in the old Gallic way. "The capitalists have to be frightened," she told told me. "There is no alternative. They can't just dispose of people as they wish. They have to be held accountable." Royal, 53, has presided in Poitiers since 2004 when she became the first woman elected to run one of France's 22 regions. She had just come out of a meeting where she offered her support to workers from Aubade, the lingerie brand, who are resisting plans to close their factory and move production to Tunisia. "We have to prevent this délocalisation sauvage (wildcat outsourcing)," she said. "The workers have no power. We need to tax businesses who want to move out jobs and tax their products when they re-import them." Such talk is music to the voters who see Royal as a Joan of Arc who will bring new moral leadership to France while shoring up the old protective state. Royal, whose rank as France's most popular politician should win her the Socialist nomination next month, has been using her region as a test-bed for the ideas that she will apply to France if she wins next May. Her creed is what she calls participative democracy -- initiatives to give citizens more say in running schools, local government and other services. The former junior minister and long-serving local MP, has won admirers since she took over the region, ending 18 years of conservative control, much of it under the presidency of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the last Prime Minister. She has also made enemies with what are seen as brutal methods and a dictatorial management style. Opponents, who include local Socialists whom she has big-footed, depict the glamorous Parisienne as a control freak and call her "the Valkyrie" and "the killer". Elisabeth Morin, a conservative who inherited the regional presidency from M Raffarin in 2002 and lost it to Royal two years later, minced no words about her successor. "A lot of councillors and local people are discovering that behind Mme Royal's fluttering eye-lashes and angelic smile lies a person who is violent, hard and sectarian," said Morin. Morin accuses Royal of dismantling long-term projects in order to court popularity with an array of small schemes such as vouchers for schoolbooks and subsidies for rainwater collectors. One of the items that she axed was a subsidy to Ryanair for its popular services from Britain to Poitiers and La Rochelle. Among those who disagree is Marie Legrand, a Greens party vice-president on the Council. She has, she said, reversed her initial dim view of Royal. "At the beginning she was inexperienced. She had been a minister but never run an elected body," said Legrand. "She had trouble delegating and she tried to control everything for a few months. But she has totally changed and it's a real joy to work with her." La Méthode Royal, and the ruffled feathers that it causes, were on display in a council session on Monday. She rushed the 55 members through an agenda loaded with typical initiatives -- the creation of a life-long learning agency, subsidies for a centre of excellence in health services, the promotion of culture in high schools and funding for digital networks. Never dropping her smile, Madame la Présidente brooked no interruption. She admonished chattering councillors with a brisk "No talking!". Because she is a woman, Royal's style inevitably draws cracks about head-girls and schoolmistresses. People applied the same terms to Margaret Thatcher when she revealed her bossy side before becoming British Prime Minister in the late 1970s. But everyone saw that Thatcher had strong, if not revolutionary, ideas to match the brisk style. Royal's heroine is Jeanne d'Arc, another visionary leader, but Ségo has yet to dispel the mystery about where she wants to take France. Watching her up close I got the impression of a very capable woman whose vision may still be in the making.
Madame la Présidente in her Poitiers seat
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd