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Ségo Stumbles?
Senior Socialist Party figures are reported to have growing doubts about Ségolène Royal's candidacy. Well, it's a little late now - and their worries, it seems, are not reflected in the most recent opinion polls. Is it just that "senior Socialist Party figures" are helplessly out of touch?
First came news that Royal and her partner, party secretary Francois Hollande, had to reveal the value of their assets following claims from opposition sympathisers that they had divided their assets into trusts to avoid paying France's wealth tax (ISF).
Royal described rumours of her wealth as the work of "racailles", which the British press is taking to mean "thugs" - when Nicolas Sarkozy linked this word with rioting hoodlums in 2005, the press widely translated it as the much more incendiary "scum."
Royal valued her share of the Hollande-Royal assets at €355,000: Between them, the couple would be eligible to pay the ISF tax.
Socialists support the ISF as a tax on the rich - indeed, Francois Hollande himself played up to the leftist gallery with his recent television claim that he doesn't like the rich, and, furthermore, promised to raise taxes on anyone he considers wealthy.
Trouble is, for Hollande, earning €4000 (£2600) a month qualifies you as wealthy: Paying the wealth tax makes you wealthy, too, obviously - even if Royal's assets, which include her share of their properties, appear modest by British standards. Hollande and Royal share an apartment in a decent suburb just outside Paris. In London, for example, a similar property would set you back a great deal more.
Royal protests that she's not rich, just well off. In a party whose leader prides himself on his hatred of the wealthy, and who plots to extend that definition of "rich" to millions of ordinary Frenchmen and women, it is understandable that some suspect that Francois Hollande might cause as much trouble to his partner's campaign as Jacques Chirac hopes to do to Sarkozy's.
It's not just EURSOC who suspects this. Her top aide, Arnaud Montebourg, joked on French TV that Ségo "has only one flaw - her partner." Though he argued he was having a laugh on the chat show, Royal was furious and suspended him from his duties for a month. Royal said she had showed the Socialist MP "the yellow card" for crossing the line - Montebourg still protests he was joking. The problem here for presidential contender is that Montebourg is a major player in her party, a proud man and a presidential wannabee in his own right: Will he take kindly to being sent to the sin bin for a month?
These troubles follow a difficult month for Royal. Her Christmas broadcast showed her looking suitably Milf-esque, but its self-consciously wobbly camerawork was criticised as just too trendy. She spent her visit to China dressed in white, which is supposed to be the Chinese colour of mourning. She failed to attack China's human rights record, but bizarrely praised the speed of its justice system.
And the less said about her trip to the Middle East, where she appeared to agree with a ranting Hizbollah politician's views on the US and Israel, the better.
But is it all bad? Should the Socialists be worried? In truth, they've never really "got" Ségo in the way the French people have. To them, she's an upstart woman who didn't wait her turn in the queue for the presidential nomination. She's a media creation, a proto-Blairite, a chic bossyboots.
Some polls showed her support down slightly - but they followed Nicolas Sarkozy's triumphant "coronation" as the centre-right's candidate. Polls over the following days showed them neck-and-neck again.
While Sarkozy has a lead over Royal in the first round, she retains a clear (52-48) lead in the second round. Hardly a disaster.
The first round, though, could be dangerous for her, especially if her party begins to show its traditional wobble. The angry left still hopes to bleed votes from the Socialists, while promises of higher taxes from the likes of Hollande could drive Socialist voters to the centre (though it is difficult to imagine many swapping Sego for Sarko). No-one expects a far-left campaigner to defeat Royal, but a split left vote could lead to another surprise from Jean-Marie Le Pen.
A further danger could present itself early next week when Green campaigner and popular television presenter Nicolas Hulot announces whether he intends to run for the presidency.
A recent poll suggested Hulot could win around 7 percent of the first round vote - and this was before he declared his candidacy. Green votes tend to come from the left, and Royal is sure to be worried she could lose votes to the charismatic Hulot.
If he does decide to run, expect a few more yellow cards from the Royal camp over the following weeks.
