FRANCE: Ségolène Royal's landslide victory in the Socialist Party's presidential primary was widely hailed yesterday as "spectacular" and "a triumph".
According to final figures provided by party headquarters, 81.97 per cent of registered Socialist voters participated in the election. Ms Royal won 60.65 per cent of the vote. Former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn won 20.69 per cent, and former prime minister Laurent Fabius 18.66 per cent.
With such an overwhelming margin, Ms Royal's rivals had no choice but to concede defeat and congratulate her. "She won, and she won well," Mr Strauss-Kahn said. "Everybody is behind her. The Socialists have one candidate and we have to win against the right."
But despite broad calls for unity in her victory speech, Ms Royal appears unlikely to make concessions to the men who opposed her in an often bitter six-week campaign. "In any case, with this result, the reconciliation is achieved," she told Le Monde, referring to her high score. "There is no need to negotiate anything."
Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing interior minister whom Ms Royal is likely to confront in the presidential run-off on May 6th, 2007, responded to her designation as the Socialist candidate with a grin bordering on a sneer.
He said he wants a "debate of modernity" with her, "a debate that gets to the bottom of things, so Madame Royal . . . tells us in what way she is different from the French Socialist Party, which is, alas, very conservative".
Like Mr Sarkozy, Ms Royal has staked her claim to the presidency on the promise of change. She began her victory speech in her home constituency of Melle, in the Deux-Sèvres department, by thanking "all those who want things to change".
Her victory marked a change of generation in French politics. Ms Royal (53) and Mr Sarkozy (51) are the first serious French presidential candidates born after the second World War.
It also marked a change of gender.
"Today, for the first time, a woman can become president of the republic, which is in itself a major and progressive event," said Bertrand Delanoë, the Socialist mayor of Paris, who had refused to support Ms Royal.
In a campaign pamphlet entitled "10 reasons to vote for Ségolène Royal," argument number 1 was: "She can make the left win."
The desire to see the left win, to overcome the debacle of April 2002, when the Socialist candidate did not even make it to the run-off, was the reason cited most often by militants voting for Ms Royal.
Over the next six months, Ms Royal will attempt to win voters from the centre-right and far left. There are even suggestions that President Jacques Chirac, who detests Mr Sarkozy, could secretly support her.
The Green Party already supports Ms Royal. François Hollande, the Socialist Party leader and her companion for the past 25 years, will try to negotiate deals with the multitude of small, left-wing parties whose fragmentation created catastrophe for the Socialists in 2002. Two Trotskyist parties will be his biggest challenge.
French commentators sometimes compare Royal and Holland to Hillary and Bill Clinton. On November 26th, the couple will make French political history by sharing the stage, alone, for her official investiture at the Mutualité auditorium.