From Liberation:

Speeches, postcards, and an umbrella…

Three days of images from the heart of the Socialist Party…

And from Le Monde:

Direct from Reims: Royal slams the door, Hamon remains a candidate, Aubry and Delanoe keep quiet…

Three hours after the start of the meeting to decide which resolutions to adopt, Segolene Royal and her followers announced their departure. ‘The hand that we held out has not been grasped,’ said Royal. ‘We are taking action. I call on all the party members to choose next Thursday between a return to the methods of old, or a Socialist Party with alternative methods. The SP needs to change.’

I was interested to read in Liberation that Segolene Royal has won the Socialist Party’s endorsement of her policies. In the voting, Royal received 29%, with Aubry and Delanoe following with 25% each, and Hamon with 19%. Bertrand Delanoe, who has the support of Royal’s ex-partner Francois Hollande, is also mayor of Paris.

I’ve always liked Royal, and thought she conducted a reasonable campaign back in 2007. Stylish and assertive, she even wears heels when visiting remote farms! A good debater, she was a match for Sarkozy in their final debate, perhaps too much so, since as Adam Gopnik remarked in his article, ‘this allowed Sarkozy to look wistfully harried and play the one part that he’d never had the chance to play before–a sympathetic, erring, middle-class French husband being blasted by a furious wife.’

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