Sergey Kadinsky
Written Works
The Rise of Segolene Royal
This essay, the last of the series includes the political theory writings of Robert D. Benford, Marshall Ganz, Robert A. Snow, and Deborah Stone as a frames in describing Royal's intra-party realtionships.
Segolene Royal’s Intra-Party Relationships
In her rise to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency in the 2007 elections, Segolene Royal was subject to a higher standard than her intra-party rivals, with a greater focus on her public views and personal life. Royal rose to the occasion by transcending the party’s platform on certain issues, gathering a sizable amount of support among younger members and more moderate voters. Until the last days approaching the May 2007 runoff election, it has been difficult to predict the outcome, largely due to the uneasy relationship between Royal and the “elephants,” as the established leaders of her party are known.
In her struggle to win the trust of party members, Royal played the animal metaphor by portraying herself as a gazelle among elephants. In a combative reply to her critics, Royal quipped “Gazelles run faster than elephants,” suggesting that she can keep up with the changing political culture. (Campbell) Deborah Stone describes metaphors as giving people and institutions a natural feeling. (Stone 149) Thus, Royal is naturally more capable of leading than the “elephants.” Part of her organic image is her refusal to read from a script. Her speeches emphasize collective identity by urging party leaders to put aside personal differences, social justice, and leveling the imbalance between capital and labor. (Thornhill) To inspire voters, Royal gave examples of empirical credibility, by linking campaign promises to her life story. By using empirical credibility, Royal displayed an image that transcended stereotypes. This resembles the use of former military leaders as speakers at anti-war events, as a way of enhancing the credibility of anti-war groups. (Benford; Snow, 621) Similarly, Royal wanted to show voters that her leadership qualifications go beyond the traditional socialist model.
Born into a conservative religious household, she rebelled against her authoritarian father, by taking on political and social values that were opposite to his. At the Sciences Po Univeristy in Paris, Royal’s rural manners separated her from the largely urban student body. At age 19, Royal sued her father in court, following the divorce of her parents. While some of Royal’s siblings have denied that their father was a “monster,” advertising executive Natalie Rastoin understands the framing of Royal’s story, suggesting it is “devastating family background,” similar to the miserable boyhood of Bill Clinton, which fueled his determination to succeed. (Thornhill)
Throughout her candidacy, Royal had a number of gaffes that undermined her candidacy. Unlike Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Royal never had extensive experience in foreign affairs. During her travels to the Middle East, Royal was treated as a state leader, separately meeting with the prime ministers of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority. In a meeting with Lebanese parliament member Ali Amar of Hezbollah, she criticized him for describing Israel as the “Zionist entity” rather than by its proper name. At the same time, she failed to criticize his description of Israeli policies as “Nazism.” She also expressed support for Amar’s views towards the United States. Her leading opponent in the April 2007 elections, Minister of the Interior and center-right UMP candidate Nicolas Sarkozy pounced on the gaffe by claiming that the Middle East is no place for a “political lightweight.” (Litchfield) Having less political clout made it difficult for Royal to shake off the negative image caused by the gaffes. (Thompson, 142)
In addition to simple gaffes, Royal also had a few incidents of backfire, where her gestures, while well-meaning, resulted in a negative reaction. An example is her public support of the independence movement in the Canadian province of Quebec. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sharply noted, “It is highly inappropriate for a foreign leader to interfere in the democratic affairs of another country.” (Agence France-Presse) By definition, a backfire is not a result of incompetence, but rather from mismanagement, intended to have a certain effect, but producing quite the opposite. (Thompson, 143) In the case of the Quebec gaffe, Royal was hoping to attract nationalist French voters by voicing support for ethnic French nationalists in Canada. Royal’s other nationalist moves included promoting the national anthem and hanging the French flag on every home, calling for a “reconquest of the symbols of the nation” from the political right. (Sciolino)
In her political rise, Royal has simultaneously attempted to win the support of the party leadership, while cultivating grassroots support to prove that either way, she can emerge the winner. An early example of this is her six-month campaign for the presidency of the Poitou-Charentes Region, which was fought without the help of any visiting party heavyweights. (Henley) A year after winning this office, Royal announced her candidacy for the presidency. During her debates against Strauss-Kahn and Fabius, the latter was alleged to have said “Who will look after the Children?” After winning, she appointed them as “strategic counsel” in her campaign. (Di Giovanni) Royal’s most important tie to the party leadership is her partner, Francois Hollande, who is the secretary of the Socialist party. Together, the pair combines the image of the “insider” and the “outsider” to provide a diversity of knowledge in providing a new collective identity for the party. Lawyer Jean-Pierre Mignard, a close friend to Royal suggests sexism and jealously to be the motives of her intra-party rivals. “She is not the candidate of the top of the party, but its depths,” he said. (Thornhill)
Royal’s constituency includes a large online following, through her “desires for the Future” site. With a strong constituency, a leader is more likely to know where to find local resources, whom to recruit, what tactics to use, and how to encourage constituents to identify with the organization. (Ganz, 16) At the same time, by tapping into issues that fall outside the socialist platform, Royal attempted to foster weak ties within a heterogeneous network, accessing a diversity of people, ideas, and alliances. In his evaluation of a successful social movement, Marshall Ganz writes that a “combination of strong and weak ties facilitates the creative recontextualization of strategic choices, linking access with commitment.” (Ibid)
Building on her local popularity, Royal engaged in “pointillist politics” by directly affecting the lives of her voters. Examples include subsidizing the purchase solar panels for local businesses, and helping cheese farmers in her region secure the coveted AOC trademark, improving their sales. (Thornhill) Likewise, while many salons in Paris were discussing economic theories and the future of Europe, Royal appeared on television to discuss school hazing and the effects of television violence on children, making her appear as more in tune to the daily concerns of voters. (Baum)
Prior to her party primary victory, Royal’s rivals accused her of veering away from the party ideology. Among these voices was Fabius, who felt that his dream of becoming president was being snatched away from him. As the election approached, Fabius urged party members to pick a candidate of the “real left.”(Thornhill)
In spite of her glamorous image and widespread grassroots support, Royal continued to trail center-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy after securing the primary election in her party. After reluctantly helping elect centrist candidate Jacques Chirac in the 2002 runoff election (as an alternative to the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen), the socialist voters feared another right-wing president, seeking to vote for anyone who had a chance of defeating Sarkozy. An alternative to Royal emerged in Francois Bayrou, who described himself as a “radical centrist,” in an effort to attract non-ideological voters. Among Royal supporters, socialist leader Jean-Pierre Bel recognizes the importance of flexibility. “There is a big gap between the political elite and the French people, and Segolene Royal knows how to close that gap,” Bel said. “She’s very simple, very real.”
To maintain an image of confidence, Royal’s campaign workers have been instructed not to comment on polls and to desist from “soul searching.” At the same time, Royal has publicly criticized the “elephants” for not being supportive enough. This was seen as a sign of division in a time when the party was desperately in need of unity. (The Irish Times) Royal’s criticism of party leaders, the press, and opinion polls is classic example of a conspiracy narrative, where the control of an election is in the hands of a few, who used it to their benefit. (Stone, 143)
As the runoff election approached, the combination of gaffes and perceived lack of experience served Royal a close defeat to Sarkozy. Within her party, the debate between sticking to party ideology and moving towards centrist pragmatism may result in a split. Unless this debate is resolved soon, the centrist and right-wing parties may sweep the parliamentary elections as well, resulting in further marginalization for the Socialists, who have not had one of their own as president since 1995, when François Mitterand retired from office.