Due to inner divisions, the major left wing French political party, the Parti Socialiste (PS) is experiencing a major crisis. The congress that starts on the 14th of November in Reims is supposed to unite the party and put it back on track in preparation for the next presidential election.
New leaders of the PS will be elected during the congress. Party members voted last Thursday over six motions to find out what issues were thought to be most important. Finally, the motion led by Ségolène Royal – the former candidate to the presidency – won, but only with 29% of the vote, highlighting the deep divisions that have been tearing the PS apart since the end of the presidency of Mitterrand in 1995. Mitterand remains the only left wing president.
Having hoped to find a leader in Lionel Jospin, the socialists suffered a major defeat in 2002 when they didn’t even manage to reach the second round of voting, letting Jean-Marie Le Pen (who belongs to the far right party “le Front National”), compete against Jacques Chirac. These conflicts have prevented the party from renewing its ideas and from proving itself capable of seizing power on a national scale. The failure of Ségolène Royal in 2007 is partly due to these divisions, since she had no back-up from her own party. Instead of gathering everyone to find out where they had failed, the main leaders of the party kept seeking a way to undermine the others, leaving Nicolas Sarkozy without any opposition.
Despite the need to modernise, a handful of people have ‘clogged up’ the party. They have been dubbed the ‘elephants’ and have been accused of creating a ‘glass ceiling’, which has prevented any newcomers within the party bringing forward new ideas. This has led the party to become an empty shell. François Hollande has been the head of the party for ten years, remaining in the post despite the defeat of 2002, and the conflicts caused by the referendum over the European constitution in 2005.
The dysfunctions within the party cannot simply be explained by the conflicts between socialist leaders. Structurally, a major problem of the party resides in the fact that it does not know how to behave when it comes into contact with power and authority. Being an heir of trade unionism and revolutionary ideology, the party has never really acknowledged the fact that it has now become a governmental party. Moreover, it is continually reluctant to admit that the economy has changed, and some of its leaders still do not know what to think of the ‘free market’.
The current crisis is a major one for the PS. Ségolène Royal will surely become the head of the party, but it hardly seems possible that she can find a way to unite the party around her, and renew its thoughts before the next presidential election. Whilst Sarkozy is surely pleased to witness the PS falling apart, the French Republic is suffering.
