Unless it is only a decoy of a paper tiger

What is the project of the Socialist Party Adopted Saturday at a national convention, this thirty-two pages entitled "Successfully set change" should logically serve as the bible for the Socialist candidate in the presidential election of 2007. As such, it deserves the attention of voters. Unless it is only a decoy of a paper tiger. The doubt is allowed, because this manifesto, which is the result of a synthesis between all the sensibilities of the party, does not play its role in combat. Never in its history the party came with so many candidates for the presidential nomination: Ségolène Royal, Laurent Fabius, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Jack Lang, who openly declared their ambition in addition, it takes with Arnaud Montebourg and Martine Aubry, which exclude nothing, François Hollande, ahead of its time, and Lionel Jospin, who camped in the subliminal posture of use. View from the outside, this inflation of candidates for the nomination seems quite scary for a party that was eliminated from the second round of the 2002 presidential election! But it is precisely this which explains this: candidates to the throne are so convinced that voters from the left, tapped by remorse, go vote for the PS in the first round of the presidential 2007 that they feel all right to try their luck. And so much worse if the final selection, scheduled for the end of November, to catch game speeds. With Ségolène Royal, who continues to leap at the top of the polls, men of the party have not said their last word.

Second incongruity: the project has been adopted by a Soviet score (93 of voters), all does not similarly found. Lionel Jospin, who in 2002 had had the misfortune to declare that his project was "not Socialist", once more preferred playing the outsiders by publishing in "The world", three days before the adoption of the text of the Socialists, a long Forum that it has declined in four subchapters: "The work", "The Republic", "The prestige of the France", "progress and the future". The road map that he proposed is certainly not antagonistic to the project, but it is in a parallel way. This is not simplifying things.

Ségolène Royal is not at rest. The favorite candidate to apply repeat who wants to hear that the PS project "will be that of any candidate in the presidential election", but the strong marker which assured its recent popularity 'just order' is not the backbone of the project, which focuses more on the "development". Indeed, number of his comrades him accuse of committing a serious strategic challenge from flirting on the lands of the right or by distributing a few good points to Tony Blair, rather than remain focused on the good old left. Jack Lang is not the project released, but when it grows a bit, the former Minister says that the text looks more like a catalogue of proposals to a real project and that all lack singularly breath. As Dominique Strauss-Kahn, he announced before even the adoption of the text that it reserved the right to sort: not question for him to repeal the law Fillon, renationalisation EDF or to transfer the contributions on the added value "of a stroke of a pen". He stated in a recent interview at the "voices" (1) asking, in addition, his comrades to be rigorous in the encryption of their proposals: inflation is often bad counselor for a left that claims to govern in the long term.

In reality, the only two true aficionados of the Socialist manifesto are Laurent Fabius and François Hollande, but for reasons that are not exactly the same. The first wants to read the triumph of its line: the epitome of a political project "authentically" from left, capable of carrying the only winning for the Socialist candidate would be the minimum wage to 1,500 euros, housing, the renationalisation of EDF, the professional universal shield: that left the widest gathering possible. Needless to Laurent Fabius is seen very well in the role of this candidate to rally. François Hollande, he sees in the expression of the unity of the party project, the bible which zero must divert: "this project engages us all." "It is much more than a basement, much more than a framework, it is a contract for change," he exclaimed with spirited Saturday. Behind this ode, there is obviously a political calculation. If in November competition between the various candidates in the rat race, the unitary reflex could propel on the front of the stage that best embodies the unity of the party... In other words, the first Secretary Francois Hollande.

The problem is that synthesis is never clear nature. It is a sort of copied-pasted proposals, connected between them by a text devoid of asperities since it should offend nobody. Therefore, to know what really is the "hollandisme", pick up outside the party and to refer to a book (2) François Hollande was published at the same time to the project. Its two credo, "share power" and "reform in the long term", are resolutely inspired Social-Democrat, which is not surprising to this disciple of Jacques Delors. What is more, on the other hand, it is the most emblematic character of the party is forced to clarify his thinking out of the party.

This refers to the original issue: what is the project In reality, the activists themselves seem to ask. Much, lately, flocked to the party to influence the election of 2007: a few months, the PS is, according to these officials, spent 130,000 acceding to 220,000, which is a nice progression. Yet, an activist on two only had wanted to participate in the vote. The others abstained, preferring to reserve for the great battle, the only reality which has: the designation of the candidate. Because it is the same scenario in every presidential election: the party is spend months developing a project, the text of reference is that of the candidate. It should therefore not take at the foot of the letter the "successfully together" of PS, but use it for what it is: an indication of what the French socialism to a time T. And, again, the answer is no doubt: there is very specific and hardly soluble in European democracy, and even less in the British social-liberalism: the victory of "no" European referendum has contributed to block the cursor on a vision of the French company both anti-liberal and very State. In PS, Salvation through inflation of expenditures that the future candidate, regardless of its sensitivity will be interest to reduce if it wants to avoid the wall.