THEY CAN sense it’s within their grasp. Polls and pundits have been telling them so for weeks, and the relaxed atmosphere in the evening sunshine at the magnificent Place du Capitole yesterday spoke of a party that feels its time has finally come.
Yet for many of those who gathered in the centre of Toulouse last night to watch François Hollande address his final rally of a long, gruelling campaign, disappointment is too familiar an acquaintance to start celebrating just yet.
Old ghosts and reminders of past traumas are never far away at a Socialist Party event. Warming up the crowd before Hollande appeared on stage last night was Lionel Jospin, the former prime minister who has become one of the party’s elder statesmen and moral guides.
Jospin, of course, was sensationally denied a place in the 2002 run-off by Jean-Marie Le Pen – a memory inscribed in every French socialist’s brain as their lowest point.
Jospin has said he’ll sleep easier if he can see his one-time protege Hollande enter the Elysée Palace. “Victory is possible,” he proclaimed emotionally to tens of thousands of supporters. “Victory is taking shape!”
Milling in the crowd, far from the stage, was Ségolène Royal, the current candidate’s former partner and the last socialist to fall at the final hurdle. Her campaign generated more passion and excitement in the ranks than Hollande’s has, yet in the end she was comfortably beaten – and the socialists chastened once again.
Watching Royal make her way through the adoring crowd last night was Jean-Louis Cros, a retired local man who described himself merely as a “sympathiser” but who said he felt he should come along to push up the numbers for the television. He was cautious, even a little wary.
“Tonight, Nicolas Sarkozy is in Toulon, a National Front stronghold,” he said. “He’s not there by accident ... If on Sunday François Hollande has 51 per cent, I think he’ll be doing well. It’s not won yet, and that’s why I’m here.”
Marc Degualy, a middle-aged party member from the town of Albi, first got involved in 1981 – the year François Mitterrand became the first left-wing president in the history of the Fifth Republic.
“I was a young man when I campaigned for Mitterrand – it was an unforgettable time,” he recalled fondly, a red-and-white flag in his hand. But Mitterrand’s success has never been repeated, and Degualy won’t tempt fate this time. “I wouldn’t say I’m confident. Optimistic, yes, but we’ll be mobilised until the last minute.”
Degualy admitted he hadn’t initially seen Hollande as the best candidate for the socialists. “But I’ve seen him grow into the role. He now has the stature of a convinced socialist and a statesman,” he said.
“The recovery won’t happen in a day, but I think the style and the approach he will bring to the role will restore something that the country sorely lacks: confidence.”
Among the leaders of the Socialist Party, however, confidence is becoming difficult to conceal. When Hollande boarded the plane for Toulouse yesterday, dozens of campaign staff broke out in applause – a sign of the party’s satisfaction with their man for putting in a commanding performance in the TV duel with Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday night.
They received another boost yesterday, when the centrist François Bayrou announced he would vote for Hollande on Sunday. Bayrou declined to recommend to his supporters how they should cast their ballot, but a declaration of support from a one-time minister in a right-wing government, who won 9 per cent of the vote in the first round could prove decisive. As of yesterday, his voters were breaking equally for Sarkozy and Hollande.
On stage last night, the man himself seemed energised by the sunshine and the fillip of Wednesday night. The stump speech has shifted since the first round; Hollande has grown more comfortable, more inclined to let himself feed off the energy from the crowds.
“It’s time for change,” he roared last night. “Let victory on May 6th be seen everywhere in Europe as a moment of confidence, of renewal.”
