Ségo and Sarko: not so different

25 November 2006

The town boasts a covered market, an 11th-century church and a wrought-iron bandstand out of a children’s picture book. Even by French standards, there are a lot of smart municipal signposts pointing to yet more public works: from the ‘multi-media library’ to a brace of museums, a sports complex and a medical college. Down the road is a regional centre of excellence for the care of autistic children, brought to the town during one of Mme Royal’s three brief stints in government, as minister for the family. The nerve centre of all this spending is a tasteful farmhouse just off the market square, with blue shutters and wisteria climbing its walls. This, on further inspection, turns out to be Ségolène Royal’s constituency office.

Melle is an outrageous example of favouritism and pork-barrel spending that should shame all France. It is also very lovely, and would be a nice place in which to own a house. As noted at the start, France is aggravating that way.

Locals seem aware of their privileges, gratefully returning Mme Royal to parliament with 56 per cent of the vote at the last elections. Never mind that she is an outsider, born 53 years ago in the then French colony of Senegal, raised in Lorraine in a ferocious army family, and educated at France’s most elitist colleges, Sciences Po and then the école Nationale d’Administration (where she met her long-time partner François Hollande, leader of the Socialist party and father of her four children). No matter that she was parachuted into the seat, back in 1988, by her boss and mentor President François Mitterrand.

The local florist, Jacquy Marboeuf, explained part of the Ségo secret. ‘She has always been a link between Paris and here, fighting to channel funds to us. When we have events, like organising a Christmas market, or a spring market, every time she is asked for money, she says yes. Little sums of money, a few hundred euros, to bring the villagers together.’

You cannot spend long in ‘Ségoland’, as the French press have dubbed the area, before someone mentions cheese. Specifically, the Chabichou goat’s cheese, a tasty enough product that was languishing in obscurity until Royal became the local MP. Using contacts and skills gained during six years in Mitterrand’s private office, she rammed through AOC, or protected origin status, for the Chabichou in less than two years, a fifth of the normal time required. She founded, and funded, an annual ‘Festival of the Chabichou’, then created a discovery trail for tourists and gastronomes, the ‘Route du Chabichou’.