FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE and Martine Aubry will go head-to-head in a run-off for the French Socialist Party’s presidential nomination next Sunday after they pulled clear in yesterday’s first round.
With most of the two million votes counted last night, Mr Hollande had 39 per cent, with Ms Aubry in second place on 31 per cent.
The biggest surprise of the night was the strong performance of the relative newcomer Arnaud Montebourg, who won 17 per cent of the vote to finish third and push Ségolène Royal, the socialists’ defeated candidate against Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, into fourth place. Ms Royal won just 7 per cent, while Manuel Valls, a flag-bearer for the party’s right, finished with 5 per cent. Jean-Michel Baylet, the leader of the centrist Parti Radical de Gauche, came last with just 1 per cent.
With no candidate having reached an absolute majority, the best-placed pair – Mr Hollande and Ms Aubry – will take part in a second round run-off next Sunday for the right to challenge Mr Sarkozy in the 2012 election.
The result makes Mr Montebourg the kingmaker for the second round. The 48-year-old, who was relatively unknown to the public two months ago but successfully positioned himself as the most left-wing candidate, was already being courted by the Hollande and Aubry camps last night, both hoping to secure his valuable endorsement for the second round.
As results came through from the first open primary in the party’s history, interim leader Harlem Désir hailed the primary as a “huge success”, saying the turnout of two million, despite poor weather, surpassed the party’s expectations. Last week, most of the candidates said a turnout of one million could be seen as a success.
Under the US-style primary system, anyone who paid one euro and signed a “charter of left-wing and Republican values” was entitled to vote, a process the main opposition party hopes will confer greater legitimacy on its candidate. “A euro is not much to get rid of Sarkozy,” Mr Hollande said as he cast his vote yesterday.
Mr Hollande, who situated himself as the natural replacement for Dominique Strauss-Kahn on the party’s centre-ground, has led in opinion polls since the former head of the International Monetary Fund was arrested in New York in May.
Describing himself as “an ordinary president” in contrast to the flashy Mr Sarkozy, Mr Hollande pledged to bring down France’s huge deficit quicker than any other candidate but was criticised from the party’s right for making untenable promises, including a plan to hire 60,000 new teachers.
Ms Aubry, the mayor of Lille and until recently the party leader, positioned herself to the left of Mr Hollande. She reached out to the greens by pledging to bring an end to nuclear power in France and made much of the fact that, as labour minister in Lionel Jospin’s left-wing government, she oversaw a rare reduction in France’s chronically high unemployment rate.
At a polling centre on rue de Turenne in Paris yesterday afternoon, Caroline Stern (25) said she had opted for Ms Aubry over Mr Hollande at the last minute. “She is a woman, I think she has more charisma than François Hollande, and she’s more to the left than Hollande,” she said.
Ms Stern, who said she was not a party member, would have voted for Mr Strauss-Kahn had he stood. “I think it’s important to choose someone who can defeat the right,” she added.
Millions have tuned into live television debates between the socialist candidates in the past three weeks, and the primary has allowed the party set the news agenda.
Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party, which criticised the Socialists’ motives for the open primary at the outset, have said in recent days that they may follow suit in future elections.
“I think it was an intelligent idea,” says Marc Tenenbaum, who was voting on rue de Turenne with his daughter Sarah, of the open primary. “It will position [the socialists] nicely. It’s all people are talking about. I think it was a coup, and the other parties will follow their example.” Mr Tenenbaum, a floating voter who described himself as a left-liberal, said he had voted for Jean-Michel Baylet, the leader of the centrist Parti Radical de Gauche and the candidate early results indicated would finish last yesterday. “I think he is a realist. He won’t win, but I voted for him so that his ideas will be picked up by the socialist candidate.”