The left's new voice

France's first-ever presidential primary election was a clash of two visions of the left, from which Francois Hollande emerged the victor.

On the other side was the figure of Martine Aubry, who, as employment minister under President Francois Mitterrand, created French socialism's perhaps most iconic reform: the thirty-five hour maximum work week.

Aubry waged a hard battle against Hollande, whom she dubbed as the leader of the "soft left" - with a very strong connotation of flaccidity. Soft or not, left-wing voters saw in Hollande their best chance of beating President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 elections. With former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn out of the running, Hollande is seen as the safest pair of hands when it comes to handling the economy. He has declared the importance of bringing down France's national debt - and has not promised to turn back Sarkozy's retirement reform.

The left's new voice

Nevertheless, Hollande promises to renew the link between the French people and the principles of the French Revolution, by raising taxes and spending the money on education.

"We must offer to the youth of France, to the coming generation, the prospect of lives better than ours," he said Sunday, on the evening of the primary.

"It's the French dream that we have to conjure up again, the dream that enabled generation after generation throughout the history of the French republic to believe in equality and progress, which is why I have made education the great priority of what could be my five-year term of office."

With his spectacles and his Mister Average combover, Francois Hollande is not known for star-quality. During the last presidential election he was called Mister Segolene Royal; at the time he was most famous for being the companion of the glamorous-looking though wooden-sounding presidential candidate of the day.

Man of the country

Hollande is a parliamentarian very-much implanted in his current base of Correze, a rural, rugby-playing federal department at the gate to Southwest France. He is very much a candidate of the country rather than the city, the provinces rather than the capital. Looking at a map of Sunday's voting, there are few places where Hollande did badly - but the big one is Paris.

According to political commentator Eric Zemmour, Nicolas Sarkozy would have preferred to have Aubry as an opponent, setting up a comparison between what he would have described as a modern, forward-looking right and an archaic left. However, Hollande's lack of experience and his provincialism could present the president with other lines of attack:

"He's a local politician, king of a party of local politicians," Zemmour told RTL radio. "It's the small and medium-sized towns of France that gave Hollande his victory over the candidate of the big cities."

"In the midst of the euro storm, Sarkozy will play the role of the weather-hardened professional against the provincial amateur," Zemmour said.

'Quiet strength'

But Sarkozy will have to tread carefully. Hollande managed to stay nice during his fight with Aubry. She was the one calling him names, not the other way round.

There are many, many people in France who dislike the metropolitan elite. And many more who dislike the pitbull aggression of the current French head of state.

The last, and only, time in modern French history that the people chose a Socialist president, it was Mitterand, who won with an election poster showing a peaceful French village and the slogan: "Quiet Strength" ("la force tranquille").

Hollande may be very much harder to beat than he looks.

Author: John Laurenson, Paris /dl

Editor: Mark Hallam