FRANCE: France's former socialist prime minister Michel Rocard set the tone for the Socialist Party's "summer university", which will end in La Rochelle tomorrow, when he told Le Nouvel Observateur magazine: "With each day that passes, we [ socialists] become more unbearable to each other."
The power struggle in the Socialist Party pits socialists who supported the European constitutional treaty, nominally led by Francois Hollande, against opponents of the treaty, mainly the former prime minister Laurent Fabius.
The two men are avoiding each other at La Rochelle. Mr Fabius will head a workshop on housing issues today, but will leave before Mr Hollande's keynote address tomorrow.
Since the gathering started on Thursday night, socialist politicians have tried to soften the negative image created by months of sniping. "No squabbling, no polemics," Mr Hollande said. "Snide little phrases are beneath the situation."
Aware that personal attacks are distasteful to socialist rank and file, the feuding politicians are stressing their opposition to the right-wing prime minister Dominique de Villepin.
Mr Hollande said the party "must quickly provide a political outlet for the anger that is growing" against a government motivated by "liberal fever".
The battle for control of the party began nearly a year ago, when Mr Fabius announced he opposed the European constitutional treaty. Though a majority of party members voted for the treaty in an internal referendum last December, socialist voters swung the tide against the treaty by massively voting No in the May 29th referendum.
Mr Hollande and his supporters expelled Mr Fabius and other prominent opponents of the treaty from the party leadership in early June.
