Greens threaten French Socialists

By Lucy Gill
BBC Monitoring

Praise has been lavished on Daniel Cohn-Bendit of Europe-Ecologie

The strong showing of the French Greens in the European elections has sent shockwaves through the country's media and heaped yet more pressure on the beleaguered opposition Socialist Party (PS).

Praise has been lavished on Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the Green MEP, who rallied the disparate forces of the French environmentalist movement under one banner: Europe-Ecologie.

The group won 16.28% of the vote, just behind the Socialists. The governing centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) came top with 27.8%.

"The environmentalist leader led a campaign that was above all European... even if few voted, the French rewarded lists that stuck to the purpose of the election: electing European deputies, not protesting against the government," wrote Laurent Joffrin in the left-wing daily Liberation .

Both the centrist Democratic Movement (MoDem) and the PS lost support to Europe-Ecologie, with the Socialist vote sliding below the symbolic 20% threshold, stoking speculation that PS could be eclipsed as the main opposition.

No-one on the left would have contested [the Socialist Party's] supremacy on the left. On Sunday, something changed Paul-Henri du Limbert Le Figaro

Paul-Henri du Limbert of the centre-right Le Figaro said the result had transformed the political landscape.

He acknowledged that the PS had struggled ever since its candidate for the 2002 presidential election lost in the first round to the far-right National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

However, Mr du Limbert said that up until now, "no-one on the left would have contested [the Socialist Party's] supremacy on the left. On Sunday, something changed."

'Eleventh hour'

Michel Noblecourt in the centre-left Le Monde said voters were punishing the PS for "publicly tearing itself apart" during its leadership contest last November.

Martine Aubry has set a six-month time frame for the party to work on renewal

Martine Aubry beat her rival, Segolene Royal, by such a small margin that it split the party down the middle.

The two women publicly reconciled on 28 May, less than two weeks before polling day - "too little too late" said Liberation.

The paper said Ms Aubry's "credibility as the party's number one is at risk" following the result.

So far, no-one inside the party, including among Ms Royal's supporters, has challenged her position.

However, the weekly Le Point reported that some reform-minded Socialists were "grinding their teeth" because Ms Aubry had responded to the defeat by setting a six-month time frame for the party to work on renewal.

"It's the 11th hour for the PS," Socialist MP Manuel Valls was quoted as saying.

"We have to change methods, direction, generation, policies and name," he added. "The word Socialist no longer means anything."

Social democrats' decline

Some commentators have located the PS's problems within a wider, European crisis of social democracy.

One commentator urged the Socialists to merge with Europe-Ecologie

Le Figaro's Renard Girard said the aftermath of the financial crisis had rendered the political terrain more favourable to the centre right.

European voters "have internalised the scale of public deficits in Italy, France Germany and [the United Kingdom]," he said.

"The debate is no longer about the advantages or disadvantages of the Welfare State... as everyone understands that the money to finance it has run out."

Laurent Joffrin of Liberation, however, argued that social democrats were suffering because their ideas were more relevant than ever but have been adopted by the right, leaving them without a distinctive identity.

"During the financial crisis, the right finally put into practice all the traditional prescriptions of leftwing economic interventionism," he said.

The social democrats' woes had been compounded by the "rise of environmentalism and anti-capitalism, which have stolen the torch of concrete idealism that was their raison d'etre", he added.

Unstoppable force?

Embracing environmentalism could restore the French Socialists' sense of purpose, according to an editorial in Le Monde.

What is [Europe-Ecologie's] vision for the economy? For the euro? On the Maastricht criteria? On the role of the European Central Bank? Jean-Michel Aphatie

The article argued that environmentalism offered the left an "extension of the socialist struggle".

"The less water there is, the more food prices rise, the more temperatures climb, the more the poor and the most vulnerable to suffer," the editorial said, citing as examples the victims of the 2003 heat-wave in France and of Hurricane Katrina in the US in 2005.

Maurice Goldring, in the same paper, urged the French Socialists to merge with Europe-Ecologie.

"The only prospect of the left returning to power in France is an alliance of these two groups, which each command 16% of the vote and are well anchored on the left," he said.

But not everyone agreed that Europe-Ecologie was an unstoppable force that would or should permanently transform French politics.

Jean-Michel Aphatie a political journalist for France's RTL radio, wrote in his blog that the movement lacked substance.

"What is its vision for the economy? For the euro? On the Maastricht criteria? On the role of the European Central Bank?" he asked.

He concluded that Europe-Ecologie was little more than "a safe haven for disillusioned Socialists and tired Bayrouists [supporters of Francois Bayrou, the leader of MoDem] that could be very quickly dropped should its competitors regain their appeal."