Ségo and Sarko: not so different

David Rennie

22 November 2006

Her own deputies complain of a chilly, authoritarian style behind her flashing smile and short-skirted glamour, and of first learning about new projects from the press. Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the former centre-right prime minister who ran the Poitou–Charentes government until Ségo defeated him in 2004, likes to warn, ‘She’s seductive from a distance, but she’s maddening up close.’ One former Socialist party branch head noted that she allows others to kiss her in greeting, but that ‘Ségolène doesn’t do kisses.’

Two weeks ago pupils at the region’s state boarding schools received 13,500 pairs of traditional felt slippers, known as ‘charentaises’. They were bought and paid for by the regional government, on Royal’s orders, to help prop up struggling local slipper-makers. They are proving an unexpected hit, said Philippe Renard, deputy headmaster of the Oisellerie agricultural college, a state institution housed in a Renaissance-era castle, which received its allocation of 140 pairs this month.

‘They’re quite trendy, in bright colours, not the traditional tartan,’ said Renard. ‘Personally, I’ve been surprised to see how the pupils are wearing them.’ He was not surprised that Ségolène Royal thought of sending slippers, on the taxpayers’ ticket. ‘It’s very like her to think of the boarders’ comfort, to worry about things that most administrations don’t.’

It is all very sweet, until you remember the other France — the menacing, broken France of the banlieue housing estates, where cars burn each night and the police dare not patrol without riot gear. It is a fair bet that Nicolas Sarkozy, the front-running centre-right candidate for the presidency, has no plans to buy felt slippers for large numbers of French teenagers. Sarkozy, the interior minister, is a hugely divisive figure, accused by his critics of fanning the flames of last year’s banlieue riots, when he said youths battling the police were ‘scum’ who should be cleaned out with a high-pressure hose. He has won opprobrium and praise for his tough talk about illegal immigrants and his calls for compulsory, though non-military, national service.