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Bigmouth Strikes Again
Every time Ségolène Royal opens her mouth, she can't help but put her immaculately-shod foot in it. The latest nation to benefit from her foreign policy wisdom is Canada, where the Socialist presidential contender told the head of the separatist Parti Québecois that she shared his values of "freedom and sovereignty" for Quebec.
Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper responded with a dressing down, prompting Royal to make her now familiar plea that she was misunderstood. She wasn't openly calling on Quebec to break away, she said, merely stating her opinion that the people of the province had the right to choose.
Her Canada gaffe follows similar foul-ups in the Middle East, where she appeared to agree with a Hizbollah ranter's claim that Israel was a "Nazi state", and her praise of the "speed and efficiency" of China's obscene system of justice.
Even when she says something sensible about foreign affairs, she breaks with the consensus policy of France's elite. The government firmy opposes Iran's quest for nuclear weapons: Royal said recently that Tehran should be prevented from having nuclear power of any sort. Perhaps this makes sens - who trusts Iran on anything, after all? - but will be a difficult position to maintain should she become president, and should, as many hope, Iran's hardline regime is replaced by another less belligerent government.
Naturally, her opponents on the centre-right are having a field day with her gaffes, though they have not hugely dented Royal's position in the polls.
There are signs that the Socialist Party is beginning to show signs of stress about her candidacy. Worryingly for Royal, one of her most vocal critics has been her partner of 25 years, Party Secretary François Hollande, who is quoted in Le Monde as saying “The thing about Ségolène’s charisma is that she hasn’t got any.”
Questioned on why he "broke" with Royal's line on tax by threatening to increase the tax burden on the middle classes, Hollande responded, "Line? What line?"
