French Socialists Face Division and Derision After Vote for Leader

[Doctor Cynic]

Source: NYT

PARIS — France’s Socialist Party found itself deeply divided on Sunday and, even worse, harshly mocked. A summer of embarrassing rivalries has culminated in an excruciatingly narrow and disputed vote for a new party leader that is likely to please chiefly the country’s center-right president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Socialists are known for their intellectual disputes; part of the leadership race involved a vote on political platforms written or supported by the various candidates. But much worse for the party, it is now being ridiculed for its personal enmities and rivalries, making it seem less a serious political alternative than an afternoon soap opera.

Jean-Michel Normand, writing for Monday’s Le Monde, a newspaper sympathetic to the party, said bluntly: “You have to believe with the Socialist Party that the worst is always to come.” After a summer marked by open feuding by several candidates for party leader, he wrote, the party “could not imagine a more execrable ending — an unfinished election, followed by accusations of fraud.”

The weekly newspaper Journal du Dimanche wondered whether the “s” in the party’s acronym stood for “suicidal” rather than “Socialist,” and the front-page headline shouted: “So Much Hatred!” The paper suggested the party could split, while the front page of Le Parisien showed the party’s rose symbol cut in two, with the headline: “The Rift.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/world/europe/24france.html?hp

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. The party is having a recount drama reminiscent of Bush/Gore

One Socialist activist said dryly, 'Bienvenue a Floride' (welcome to Florida).

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. Hmmm. Sounds familiar, eh? nt

[rwheeler31]

3. Dam toot sweet get on borad.

[Odin2005]

4. My condolences to the French, who will suffer more years of Sarko because of this.

:-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

[davidinalameda]

5. sounds like the Democratic Party at times

since we're so good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory time and time again

[Ravachol]

6. The centrist wing of the party...

is up in arms against the leftist wing and vice versa. This is democracy in action; lively debates and rivalries that can lead to new parties being formed. Medias people, however, would prefer triumphs, no matter the cost for the common good.

I do not echo others fears concerning the next presidential election: the legislative elections proved to be a good showing for the Socialists and with a two turn based presidential system, there is no doubt the left will unite behind whatever left-leaning candidate will end up on the ballot against Sarko.

[ScottytheRadical]

7. In other news, a new left-wing party is forming in France....

Called the "New Anti-Capitalist Party". The formation is being led by the Trotskyite-Communist Revolutionary League, but it's being created from the grassroots and is combining activists from several different parties, including the Greens, the French Communist Party, disgruntled left Socialists, etc. It's really exciting, because the Presidental candidate of the Communist Revolutionary League received 4% of the vote in the last election, and has the highest approval rating of any party leader (I'm not joking, it's 60%). He's a working-class postman in a suburb of Paris, and he's got a lot of charisma...

Check out the website for the LCR! Parties like the French Socialist Party have long sold out to neo-liberalism and abandoned any semblance to what the orginally stood for; real revolutionary socialism is the way forward! http://www.lcr-rouge.org/

[harmonicon]

8. what a bunch of fuck ups

The election against Sarko was their's to lose, and they lost it, because of their candidate and lack of a coherent platform, not because people wanted Sarko and what he stands for. Man, they need to get it together.... however, I guess Sarko is still to the left of many US Democrats... how sad.