Martin Arnold: French Left Waits For A Second Mitterrand
"I will be the last of the great presidents . . . the last in the line of de Gaulle. After me, there will be no more in France." This was how Francois Mitterrand immodestly assessed the unpromising prospects for his successors as French president.
As the country prepares to commemorate tomorrow the 10th anniversary of Mitterrand's death, most observers agree that in spite of his stature as a towering political figure on the domestic and European stage, France's longest-serving postwar president left a difficult heritage - not only for President Jacques Chirac, who has been subjected to a string of unflattering comparisons with his predecessor, but also for those seeking to follow in Mitterrand's footsteps in the Socialist party, which has been racked by internal squabbles ever since he left office in 1995.
A recent poll suggested that Mitterrand had overtaken Charles de Gaulle as the most popular president of the Fifth Republic since its establishment in 1958. The flood of eulogistic biographies, television documentaries, and magazine and newspaper articles emerging in France this week is testament to the fond nostalgia that has built up around him since his death.
The biggest cheers have come from the Socialist party, highlighting how France's main leftwing party has struggled to find a natural successor to the man credited with bringing it out of the electoral wilderness.
Dozens of senior Socialists will be at the official commemoration in the former president's home town of Jarnac tomorrow. At last year's Socialist party conference in Le Mans, it was noticeable that for the first time speakers referred as much to Mitterrand's legacy as to that of other party leaders, such as Leon Blum and Jean Jaures.
However, Mitterrand did little to help his party after he left power, preventing potential rivals from challenging his authority by playing different factions off against each other.
"He stayed monarch until the end," says Hubert Vedrine, a close former ally of Mitterrand. As a result, the party has remained split by fierce personal rivalries that were illustrated by the party's damaging divisions over last year's referendum on the European Union's constitutional treaty. Several senior party figures rebelled against the official line of supporting the Yes camp and campaigned for the ultimately successful No vote.
The split reignited the old rivalry between two of Mitterrand's former ministers: Lionel Jospin, who threw his weight behind the Yes vote, and Laurent Fabius, former prime minister under Mitterrand, accused of lending respectability to the No camp.
Both sides claimed to be acting in the tradition of Mitterrand, with the Yes camp claiming he would have supported them just as he promoted European monetary union in the 1992 referendum. No supporters argued that Mitterrand would have backed them in reflecting public dissatisfaction with European institutions.
The plethora of personalities, including Mr Fabius and Mr Jospin, jostling to become the Socialist party candidate in the 2007 presidential elections underlines the absence of a successor to Mitterrand.
According to opinion polls, the leading leftwing candidate is Segolene Royal, the Socialist president of the Poitou Charentes region whose lack of ministerial experience, or of a pedigree in economic and foreign policy, suggests the party has yet to solve its leadership problems.
Alain Bergounioux, a Socialist official and historian, says the French left is stuck in the "ambiguity" of Mitterrand's record: whether to make wildly unrealistic promises to win power or to campaign on a realistic manifesto. "Only there is no political 'artist' like Mitterrand," he says.
As the country prepares to commemorate tomorrow the 10th anniversary of Mitterrand's death, most observers agree that in spite of his stature as a towering political figure on the domestic and European stage, France's longest-serving postwar president left a difficult heritage - not only for President Jacques Chirac, who has been subjected to a string of unflattering comparisons with his predecessor, but also for those seeking to follow in Mitterrand's footsteps in the Socialist party, which has been racked by internal squabbles ever since he left office in 1995.
A recent poll suggested that Mitterrand had overtaken Charles de Gaulle as the most popular president of the Fifth Republic since its establishment in 1958. The flood of eulogistic biographies, television documentaries, and magazine and newspaper articles emerging in France this week is testament to the fond nostalgia that has built up around him since his death.
The biggest cheers have come from the Socialist party, highlighting how France's main leftwing party has struggled to find a natural successor to the man credited with bringing it out of the electoral wilderness.
Dozens of senior Socialists will be at the official commemoration in the former president's home town of Jarnac tomorrow. At last year's Socialist party conference in Le Mans, it was noticeable that for the first time speakers referred as much to Mitterrand's legacy as to that of other party leaders, such as Leon Blum and Jean Jaures.
However, Mitterrand did little to help his party after he left power, preventing potential rivals from challenging his authority by playing different factions off against each other.
"He stayed monarch until the end," says Hubert Vedrine, a close former ally of Mitterrand. As a result, the party has remained split by fierce personal rivalries that were illustrated by the party's damaging divisions over last year's referendum on the European Union's constitutional treaty. Several senior party figures rebelled against the official line of supporting the Yes camp and campaigned for the ultimately successful No vote.
The split reignited the old rivalry between two of Mitterrand's former ministers: Lionel Jospin, who threw his weight behind the Yes vote, and Laurent Fabius, former prime minister under Mitterrand, accused of lending respectability to the No camp.
Both sides claimed to be acting in the tradition of Mitterrand, with the Yes camp claiming he would have supported them just as he promoted European monetary union in the 1992 referendum. No supporters argued that Mitterrand would have backed them in reflecting public dissatisfaction with European institutions.
The plethora of personalities, including Mr Fabius and Mr Jospin, jostling to become the Socialist party candidate in the 2007 presidential elections underlines the absence of a successor to Mitterrand.
According to opinion polls, the leading leftwing candidate is Segolene Royal, the Socialist president of the Poitou Charentes region whose lack of ministerial experience, or of a pedigree in economic and foreign policy, suggests the party has yet to solve its leadership problems.
Alain Bergounioux, a Socialist official and historian, says the French left is stuck in the "ambiguity" of Mitterrand's record: whether to make wildly unrealistic promises to win power or to campaign on a realistic manifesto. "Only there is no political 'artist' like Mitterrand," he says.