"It wasn't my fault," says Ségolène Royal.

You have to give Ségolène Royal credit for persistence. The Socialist who lost the French presidential election to Nicolas Sarkozy is seen by many of her party colleagues these days as an embarrassing loser. Her bumbling, quasi-mystical campaign is the subject of mockery and eye-rolling in the wider political world and media. But now she is back to relaunch her run for the presidency next time round -- in 2012.

Today Ségo, 54, hits back at her many detractors in a book that gives her version of the race. True to form, she writes as if she did not really lose, at least not morally, when she went down in the run-off with 47 percent of the vote to Sarko's 53 percent last May.

Her non-victory, as she depicts it, was the fault of everyone else, especially the party elders who she says set out to sabotage her.

She was also dragged down by François Hollande, her party leader and life-long partner who was having an affair with a journalist. The media were unfair to her because she was a woman and she had nothing like the organisational fire-power of the Sarkozy camp, she says.

The book's title, Ma Plus Belle Histoire, C'est Vous (My most beautiful story is you) is straight from the feel-good, emotional tone of her campaign. It is borrowed form a hit by Barbara, the late singer from whom Royal also lifted one of her more notorious electoral slogans: "Love one-another" (see Barbara video below).

Royal dismisses one by one the charges that she was incompetent, inconsistent, disloyal and slightly dotty with her religious language. "I am neither Joan of Arc nor the Virgin Mary," she writes.

The media were obsessed with her gaffes while they did not bother when Sarkozy made worse slips, she says. For example, Sarko did not know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite and confused countries when he was visiting Senegal, she says. "You can only wonder what would have happened to me if I committed a tenth of his gaffes.".

Sarko, she says, controlled the media throughout the campaign via his friendship with their owners and by charming and cajoling the press pack that followed him. "There are no journalists who are friends. That is one of my convictions. Between me and journalists, there exists and unbreakable glass wall. I don't make believe like Sarkozy, who enclosed his following press in a cocoon of fake camaraderie."

Royal takes on a martyr's tone as she responds to the barrage of disdain that she has incurred in books by leading Socialists since last summer. The chief perpetrator of her non-victory, she says, was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the runner-up for the Socialist candidacy whom Sarko has now exiled to Washington as boss of the International Monetary Fund.

"It will be news to no-one when I say that it was in the governing circles of my own party that they first began judging me as incompetent and illegitimate," she says. "I was caught in a pincer movement between apparatchiks from my own party on one side, and the right (Sarkozy) on the other .... How is it that the attacks came more from the left than from the right?"

In one extraordinary episode, she reveals, Michel Rocard, an ageing leftwing star, visited her quite far into the campaign to tell her that she had no hope of winning and should immediately let him assume the candidacy.

In a short passage, she reveals her bitterness towards Hollande, the father of their four children, for his failure to support her. Her energy was sapped by her "secret humiliation"  over Hollande's affair with a magazine journalist undermined her campaign, she writes. The couple kept their separation secret until announcing it on the night of the election run-off.

She says that Hollande kept a damaging distance from a campaign which he warned her against, telling her: "You won't make it; you haven't seen anything yet of their brutality. You're not strong enough".

Oddly writing of herself in the third person, she said "The candidate had no shoulder to lay her head on, to cry when things were hard (or to laugh at the happy moments). So she didn't cry and held in her feelings," she says.

Hollande recently asked to be allowed to come back but she refused, she adds. "I told him that it was not a good idea. But that we could work together politically. I hope he is happy. He has so many qualities. And I loved him for so long."

The next time, when she runs for the presidency "the support of the whole party will be necessary, as well as a loving companion who is fully behind the candidate," she adds.

The anecdote which has prompted most comment has been Royal's revelation that  she secretly offered the post of Prime Minister in her future presidency to François Bayrou, the centrist who was eliminated in the first round in April. She put the proposal to him immediately after his defeat and received an invitation to visit his Paris flat. She called from downstairs at midnight but he told her to go away on the pretext that people might see her. 

"The horse flinched before the obstacle... like a lover who fears that he can't perform or shies from a dangerous adultery," she says of Bayrou at that moment. The centrist, who has launched a new party called MoDem, has confirmed that he considered her offer has clammed up over the aborted rendez-vous. News this week of the proposal of the premiership has prompted howls of disbelief this week from some of Royal's colleagues.

Addressing her voters -- with whom she talks like a pastor with his congregation -- Royal is characteristically vague about the future.  "I do not know either the place or the time, but I do know that one day we shall meet again," she writes.

Royal may be loathed in the upper ranks of what is left of the Socialist party, but she remains the most popular leftist with voters. The Socialists are hoping to get off life-support in local elections next spring. Hollande will leave the leadership in the middle of next year and that will be Royal's chance to try to take control of the party.   

Meanwhile her self-excupation has been receiving poor reviews. It was elegantly ridiculed in Le Figaro newspaper, by Jean d'Ormesson, an elderly novelist with a waspish pen.

Royal's book makes everyone feel six months younger because she writes as if nothing happened last spring, he wrote. "It's a very happy, and sometimes even comic book. I confidently forecast for it a lively success among admirers of Barbara (the singer) and the unfortunate Socialist voters whose poor lost heads it will divert once again from their defeat and internal squabbles."

[Barbara: Ma plus belle histoire d'amour, c'est vous]

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Comments

[Jorg Andersen]

Good to see Ségo back here -- looking as great as ever. I've missed her on this blog so maybe France has missed her too.

[Juliette]

The important point is, without regard to her tone or metaphors, everything she says is true.
- she was let down by her party - even though she won the nomination by 60%
- the press was indeed harder with her. Her blunders were often provoked by Sarkozy's friends (see the Québec story)
- she was let down by her partner
- Strauss-Kahn's attitude was instrumental
In these conditions, she could never win. Maybe if she had had her party with her, she would still have lost, for other reasons. However, in this situation, she's not the most responsible for her loss.
Sarkozy made many mistakes, had a populist attitude and placed himself as a savior - just like her. Why was she taken down on this while Sarkozy wasn't?

[Jujupiter]

Sego will never be the President of France. It's obvious! No project, no vision, no conviction. She's not the only reason why the Left lost, but she's still the main reason. Sego must go.

[Dominique]

poor she... poor little thing....

[Maggie G]

I heard some socialists talking about this on the radio, and they were saying that if Ségolène Royal is guilty of not learning anything about her mistakes, then Lionel Jospin is far more guilty, because SIX years have gone by since HIS defeat, and HE hasn't admitted to any mistakes either.

Didn't Jospin write a book recently where he critsized Ségo very severely?

I have been under the impression that Jospin lost mainly because of the indiscipline of the socialist voters, who voted for other candidates in the first round in order to "make statements" and then all cried that they would have voted for Jospin if only they had "known".

Am I right in this perception, or do people really think that Jospin made gigantic mistakes and is mainly to blame for his defeat in that election?

[Madeleine, Boston (US)]

47% of the vote does not show that one has been abandoned. It is a respectable showing, and quite amazing in a country where women are expected to look pretty and keep quiet. Frenchmen have little tolerance for outspoken women, and the French male left has been putting them down since the Revolution of 1789.

It appears that Mme. Royal's book is a rebuttal of some previous ones. Can someone be called paranoid if others really are out to get her? I'm looking forward to reading it.

[Blendi]

Both Sego and Sarko made gaffes during their respective campaigns, and that wasn’t the reason why she lost, nor the real or perceived sabotage acts / lack or support, from her colleagues on the left.
Sarko seemed more in command, so the voters rewarded him for his energy, vision and promises. That was the reality.
He also gave the National Front of J.M. LePenn quite a blow.
N.S. took control of the Right, she couldnt achieve the same with the Left. People saw this.

However getting close to 50% of the votes is quite an achievement and instead of trying to reminisce and engage in a public catharsis, she must focus on the future and see what can be done.

This habitual ritual of most public figures (mainly publishing books, memoirs) so soon after an event, just after they retire or still serving, has become an embarrassment. What can one analyse after 6 months, isn’t that a tad too early to publish a book? The dust hasnt settled yet.
We have journalists that have informed us of everything happening in front and behind the scenes. Why cant they restrain their ego for a while and ask, does the public really needs more?
As if after a long election the last thing people need is a Book, furthermore a book from the losing side. I could be wrong as the book may go on to bestsellers` list.

Also I could be wrong – given the distance, and not living in France – but when one turns her political campaign in a repetitive monologue of Me this, Me that and more Me, then it could be just that when the turn of `spreading blame around` comes, it must start with Me.

Shame that `Citizen Royal` - as CB called her once- hasn’t learned that in politics you can`t personalise everything, nor take everything personally.

In case she has her eye in the future, she must realise that some steel is needed in order to become President, stature and an aura of reassurance – that she still hasn’t got – are the main prerequisites to win an election.

Forget policy, manifests and the like, humans judge things mainly on two levels, first instinctual (about leadership, personality, likeability, trust, stature) secondly on the intellectual level, develop the first then start spreading the later. Presentable, affable and good-hearted as she looks, she needs to develop more backbone in order to grow into a credible stateswoman, oh… and whinge less!

If I was a perspective voter I would not react favourably, on hearing her perpetual excuses, when the times comes to support her in the future!

[Frank Schnittger]

I have to agree with Madeleine. 47% is quite a respectable achievement in the context of such a shambolic campaign. Would any conceivable alternative Socialist Campaign have done better? I very much doubt it.

The Socialists need to get used to the idea that there isn't a natural Socialist majority in France. If a Socialist candidate is to win, they have to reach out to non-socialist voters, and this Segolene did that quite successfully.

It is not difficult to imagine that she might have gotten the extra 3% had the Socialist party remained solidly behind the candidate they themselves had selected.

Of course none of this means she will have a good chance the next time around. Whatever else you might say about Sarkozy, he is changing the political landscape. Depending on how well he does, Segolene might seem like a Dinosaur in 5 years time.

On the other hand, she may be welcomed with open arms if people are sick of Sarko by then. However the future is now largely out of her hands. Sarko now is setting the agenda and his success or otherwise will be the main factor in the next election.

But will either Segolene or the Socialist have learned their lessons by then?

[Bertrand T]

Pour se presenter aux prochaines elections et les remporter, il lui faudrait autre chose que le soutien du parti et l'amour de son "compagnon"... Il lui faudrait un programme !

[Susannah Myers]

"The candidate had no shoulder to lay her head on, to cry when things were hard (or to laugh at the happy moments). So she didn't cry and held in her feelings."

Would that she continue. Seriously, how can anyone read statements like these (and they are not uncommon with her) without cringing? Royal is self-righteous and soppy beyond endurance. Could not stand to have her as president for five years; I would have to entirely stop reading Charles' excellent blog.

[Sam Young]

Surely, this woman is the daughter of God. And He, seeing that France needed salvation, sent France His daughter, safe in the sure and certain knowledge that she would lead to victory for the nasty NS, spawned from the hip of the devil.
Our Lord works in mysterious ways.

Has Sego ever worked in the private sector? Is she just going to perpetually run for office? Is her life dedicated to public service or the attainment of power?

Stupid Socialist policies are never to blame for ruining the economy. Little wonder this Socialist isnt to blame for her loss last spring either. Maybe she can find some way to articulate how she plans on paying for her social programs over the next for years. "Economic growth" didnt cut it.

[Valerie]

Uh, I thought it was a hidden secret that, in fact, the Royal/Hollande couple had lived separately long before the official break-up? And I'm sure I heard/read that Royal was 'with' one of her closest advisors, a Bruno ??, who is with Greenpeace or some such eco-organization?

If true, her 'I sleep/cry alone' routine is a bit rich, surely.

[Lily]

"Segolene might seem like a Dinosaur in 5 years time." (Frank)

On the book cover, however and in that outer space top she rather provokes associations with Lara Croft.

Otherwise, I very much agree with Susannah Myers when she says "Royal is self-righteous and soppy beyond endurance. Could not stand to have her as president for five years; I would have to entirely stop reading Charles' excellent blog." (!)

[Actu75]

She wants to lead the left, she wants to lead France. She hasn't got what it takes, but well you know she is not the only one after all...
She puts the blame on others (socialists, medias, men) whenever she faces contradiction or failure. But well you know, she's not the only one after all...
But she really thinks she can compare to Barbara and for that she is unforgivable.

[Actu75]

@Franck Schnittger
"If a Socialist candidate is to win, they have to reach out to non-socialist voters"
Indeed he/she does
"and this Segolene did that quite successfully."
This is a questionable analyse. I am entitled to think than on the contrary Royal capitalised on the "Tout Sauf Sarkozy" leftist votes, as well as (at the first round) on the "Plus jamais 2002" mobilisation.
But she failed precisely on what she had been selected for: winning "mainstream" France's votes. A large part of those chosed Bayrou first but did not "report" in sufficient number on Royal. Another part was reliant to vote for a candidate so obviously confused both on "form and essence" (la forme et le fond).

[dot king]

I think Jospin lost the 2002 election because his campaign was lacklustre; when he spoke it was without conviction. The socialist voters stayed at home for le premier tour and were taken by surprise when Le Pen made it to the second round. It was on the cards, but the French refused to see it coming. That's how 2002 went by the board IMO. They got the government they deserved.
Ségolène Royal was the choice of the socialist militants and les éléphants showed a lack of respect for the party at large by not supporting their candidate. Despite this she got 47% of the vote.
It's not that bad a performance really, whether you like her, agree with her, have confidence in her, or not.
Charles, have you read the book? I know it's only just come out and time has been short, but your review of it seems quite hostile. I haven't read it and don't particularly want to, but reviewers on radio and TV have said that she writes "not without humour" (back to litotes). Perhaps some of this is lost in translation - of the reviews I mean where I suspect you got the material for your article ;).
For what it's worth I think her choice of a title is pretty nauseating, but I think she means to convey that the support she had from the electorate, even if she didn't win, was heartwarming. She might have expressed it better by choosing a more original title, not paraphrasing Barbara.

[Dominique]

It is not Royal who vaccumed all ideas from the left. It is the emptiness of the left way of thinking who allowed Royal to be candidate.

Without ideas, the only way to be elected was to appear "sacred". If she takes the party it will just mean that ideas did not make a comeback to the left yet.

[christopher muir]

It's a brave person who predicts an election outcome that's years away. If a population feels it's been boxed around the ears by its leader for few positive results, it knows what to do. You have only to read today's economists to sense that we seem to be heading into very choppy seas. So, to dismiss Sego altogether could be to neglect the possibility that she may have further developed her "mystical" side when disappointed voters begin searching for a less strident leadership.

Australia has recently demonstrated how rapidly a "trusted" leader can crash heavily.

[Helen]

I still can't believe Monsieur Jospin actually wrote a book criticising Segolene's campaign!

[thinknoworpaylater]

Juliette is correct though I agree Segos tone in the book sounds simplistic - badly advised again? Dominique - while I often agree with you your tone about Sego is excessively paternalistic and condescending. Its interesting that a number of women here have supported her candidacy if not all of her attitudes. Madeleine your post makes the right points about 47% being not bad given the prevailing sexism not to mention racism prevalent in France. Actually its nearly 50% of those who voted: Dot King makes the same point. Christopher Muir - yes we are all heading into very choppy seas within the economic system and you aint seen nothing yet! Sarko will have serious problems aside from the ones he creates in the next few years by his policies given the probability of a recession in th U.S. and in Europe. Rising inflation and a fall in consumption due to lack of confidence is going to cause him problems he never dreamt of, as well as his poor benighted voters.

[Bonaparte]

Oh how people are so conditioned by the Matrix.

Sarkozy was and is a joke - a dangerous and unfunny joke.

He did not win - he did not even bother rigging it - they just announced the results they wanted.

Don't believe it's possible?

That is why they get away with it. Because you do not go beyond the superficial and look behind what was a very threadbare veil to anyone who was paying attention.

Change the first round results to Sego, Bayrou and Sarko in that order and you have about the right figures.

And second round - well that should have been Sego v Bayrou.

She got about 70% vs Sarko I guesstimate.

Just like Bush is the "President".

And you think it's all just politics.