FRANCE:If Ségolène Royal wants to beat the right-wing presidential candidate,Nicolas Sarkozy, she knows what she must do: form a solid alliance with the centre- right. But to achieve that she must also, as Libération newspaper said yesterday, "give a new face to the left, that of a modern social democracy".
Two devoted Europeans, Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit and former president of the commission Jacques Delors, told Ms Royal as much yesterday. A morning meeting with Mr Delors was an obvious overture to the centrist politician François Bayrou, whose 6.8 million votes Ms Royal covets.
Mr Bayrou, who was eliminated in the first round on Sunday, had said he would be ready to appoint a socialist prime minister if he were elected, "a young Jacques Delors". As he arrived at Ms Royal's campaign headquarters yesterday, the ageing Mr Delors joked that he felt young.
In other gestures targeting Mr Bayrou's pro-Europe electorate, Ms Royal announced she would hold a rally in Lyon with the Italian prime minister and former president of the European commission, Romano Prodi, on Friday. She had invited Mr Cohn-Bendit to her rally in Montpellier last night.
Mr Cohn-Bendit weeks ago appealed for an alliance of Socialists, Greens and Mr Bayrou's UDF to defeat Mr Sarkozy. "I'm convinced that a lot of François Bayrou's voters, if they hear the right political message, are ready to join Ségolène Royal," he told France-Inter radio yesterday.
"There are differences between Ségolène Royal and François Bayrou, but they are politically compatible. The chasm between Nicolas Sarkozy and François Bayrou is much deeper."
Asked whether it wasn't time for the French Socialist Party to achieve its "Bad Godesburg" (after the party congress where the German SPD modernised itself - in 1959) or aggiornamento, Mr Cohn-Bendit concisely defined the debate that has been missing from the French campaign: "How to accept the market economy, but to make it social and ecological, not leave it in the hands of ultra-liberals . . .
"We must accept the market economy rather than central planning, the capacity of the market to create a dynamic, but at the same time the market must be controlled by laws so that the strong do not gobble up the weak."
However, given the inability of Ms Royal's team to even organise an orderly press conference, it is probably too much to hope she will reform the Socialist Party in the next 11 days. Amid a chaotic tussle of photographers, television cameras and journalists, who were summoned for a two-hour wait on the pavement, with the traffic of the boulevard drowning her out, she seemed to be saying "take it or leave it" to Mr Bayrou.
On Monday night, the Socialist candidate had proposed a "debate" with the centrist leader.
"Now it's up to François Bayrou to assume his responsibilities and say how he sees the organisation of this debate," Ms Royal said yesterday. "I have not put any pressure on him or made any ultimatum. It's up to him when he replies. Things must go fairly quickly now. I did it without ulterior motives. There is no trap."
On Monday, Mr Bayrou had reportedly listened, "splitting his sides", as first Mr Sarkozy then Ms Royal left messages on his phone. He hasn't called them back yet.
Mr Cohn-Bendit predicted that the centrist leader would not give instructions to voters at a press conference today, but would tell them to choose "in function of their values".
Though his aides are courting UDF deputies and voters, Mr Sarkozy said on Monday night that he would not "build a union of parties on the sacrifice of my sincerity". Less than two weeks ago, he had described Mr Bayrou as "the caricature of cynicism and opportunism".
Mr Sarkozy's Monday-night rally in Dijon was in the best tradition of the "Sarko Show". Singer Enrico Macias crooned "Oh Sarko, I feel good in your arms" and Eric Besson, a defector from Ms Royal's campaign, made an onstage confession that he had "participated in the demonisation of Nicolas Sarkozy".
Mr Sarkozy repeated at least a dozen times: "Why so much hatred?" At one point, he answered his own question, borrowing one of the favourite sayings of the extreme right- wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen: "Perhaps it is because I say out loud what everyone thinks to themselves in silence."