“Do we want to write yes or no all together a new page in our vibrant and popular history?” asks Ségolène Royal at the beginning of her program-book, entitled “Letter to all the resigned and indignant who want solutions”. A real government program, which has just appeared in French bookstores. The solutions proposed by Madame Royal all revolve around the magical idea of participation.
According to her, it is necessary to revive the dynamism and protagonism of citizens to put things right after five years of sarkozysm. In 2007 Ségolène Royal was the candidate of the Socialist Party (PS) and then (in the second electoral round) of the entire left in the presidential challenge against the neo-Gaullist Nicolas Sarkozy. She lost, but without looking bad: 47 against 53 percent of the votes. You now return to office, but you have to overcome a new obstacle: the socialist primaries, which are being organized for the first time. Until the 200s, the party's candidate for the Elysée was chosen by the governing bodies. Consultations were later organized among the approximately XNUMX socialists with membership cards.
Now there are primaries open to anyone who claims to "share the values of the left." There are six candidates, including François Hollande and Ségolène Royal, who together gave birth to four children but who are now divided by the "desire for Elisha". There is also the secretary of the socialist party Martine Aubry, daughter of Jacques Delors, and the novelty is represented by the "young" Manuel Valls and Arnaud Montebourg, who are not yet fifty years old. No one knows how many voters there will be in the primary. Maybe a million, maybe many more. The left has a great desire to reconquer the Elysée, where (except in the period of François Mitterrand, from 1981 to 1995) the flag of the right has always flown in the history of the Fifth Republic, which began in 1958.
Ségolène Royal wants to challenge Sarkozy again. I meet her at breakfast in a Parisian restaurant and find an extremely determined woman, just like five years ago, but with a more mature air. Tonight he will have to face the other five candidates in the socialist primaries, in a live broadcast on France 2, a public channel. Royal strongly wants to win the primaries and then the duel with old rival Sarkozy. The idea of having to block the way to her ex-husband François Hollande (actually the two never officially married) doesn't worry her in the slightest. Ségolène Royal thinks she is the best exponent of the French left and every breath she takes has only one purpose: the Elysée. Power in the name of change for a country tired of Sarkozy.
Ségolène Royal turns 58 this September 22nd. For her, the socialist primaries, scheduled for October, are probably the last chance to climb the highest peak of transalpine power.
You, Mrs Royal, are used to pedaling uphill, but this time the polls are against you regarding the outcome of the primaries. She is said to be in third position, after Hollande and Aubry. How does she not get discouraged?
I want to affirm my ideas and my proposals, which I do with the usual perseverance, determination and tenacity. Surveys leave the time they find. What do polls count in the perspective of primaries that have no precedent in French history and about which half of the respondents say they can change their opinion? Obviously very little. Proposals count and I intend to use every opportunity to express them, starting with televised debates with my party mates.
However, in his place many other politicians would have already raised the white flag?
I will hold on until the end of this electoral competition and I also hope for the next one. The one for the Elysium.
What's his secret?
I believe in what I say. I've always done it and that's why the French trusted me. I have been a minister three times and have been elected to Parliament four times. I also managed to get the mandate in the 1993 elections, which were disastrous for the left. In 2004, I wrested the leadership of the Poitou-Charentes region from the right when few predicted that I would achieve such a result. My solidity comes from my political convictions and my basic proposal for citizen participation in the management of public affairs.
What strikes you about the financial crisis currently shaking Europe and a large part of the world?
The dangerous relations between political power and banking power. A sort of unhealthy consanguinity. In my program there are rigorous controls on financial transactions, there are forms of taxation in this regard and there is the significant presence of the state in the capital of banking groups. Three years ago the States had helped the banks, but today they are at their feet. Europe has not understood that the 2008 crisis was not a simple hiccup, but that it is instead a crisis of the financial system and of society as a whole.
If you were in power, what steps would you take immediately to restore state coffers?
Systematic and effective fight against tax fraud. Obligation to repay the sums that the richest have seen themselves "given" thanks to the tax benefits granted to them by Nicolas Sarkozy in the five-year period that is about to end. Revival of economic activity.
How to revive the economy?
My idea is to make France a country of entrepreneurs. To this end, I would create a new public bank intended to support the activity of small and very small businesses.
In recent times there has been talk in France of financial scandals and cash bribes arriving from Africa at the summit of power in Paris. Do you think about it?
I think we are dealing with a sordid settling of scores between the various clans of the French right, but I don't want to get too involved in this topic. The obvious thing is that France needs to restore its international credibility and I intend to work in this perspective.
There are controversies regarding his proposal to "confine" juvenile delinquents militarily. What does it mean? I have to make a premise: I am worried about the fact that young and very young people who violate the law are placed in punitive structures that risk turning them into full-blown criminals. We therefore need an early system of punishment and also education. An alternative system to prison. It is in this vein that I hypothesize the military classification of adolescents who violate the law.
Why did you socialists lose the 2007 elections against Sarkozy?
Because we were divided. Because we have not fully understood the importance of preserving the value of our unity after the internal debate for the choice of the presidential candidate.
