At the turn of the year yet things change

Calls to "responsibility" and "height", while the stairway multiply small phrases on the opponent. The bubble exploded Strauss-Kahn, the Socialist Party returned for ten days with his old demons. More than anyone, Martine Aubry and François Hollande know what fatal poisons are for the PS division and war heads. But, in the duel ahead, this individual belief, even fitted to the body, may be seriously undermined. The most likely candidates for the Socialist primary have this double feature to be very close in their profile, and to dedicate a stubborn enmity. Want to conduct a "credible" campaign, but have another opportunity to pursue, to force the line to stand.

Same generation (it has sixty-one years, he cinquante-six), training (ENA), same commitment to the local (Lille for her, the Corrèze for him), partisan experience (she led the PS for three years, he did so for eleven years), same ideological descent ("these are the grandchildren of Mitterrand," said the ex-rocardien Alain Bergounioux), Martine Aubry and François Hollande are of the same Socialist vein. Concerned about social transformation, of classical reform for him. They also have the unique feature to share the same political father, Jacques Delors, for Martine Aubry, spiritual for François Hollande, who was the host of the witness clubs in the 1990s. "This is the best of her generation, with François Bayrou," have even said to the former President of the European Commission. What create a stable sense of fraternity... or hostility.

For at the outset, it is the latter which prevails. In the ball of hatred which animates the PS, one that is certainly exceeded in intensity by others (Fabius and Holland, for example). Nevertheless. For twenty years, misunderstanding and resentment accumulated up to form a cluster of bitterness that the two candidates are today as a ball.

As soon as the clubs deloristes, Martine Aubry marks the distance with François Hollande. "She considered that there was misappropriation of father", note a close. In 1994, the family discourages to Jacques Delors to be a presidential candidate; François Hollande is convinced that he must go. Conversely, when he became first Secretary of the PS in 1997, it does looks not his mentor as much as it would like. "It is quite utilitarian, he appealed to the election," said one leader PS. The resentment was born to the father and climbs by contagion in the girl.

Other episodes follow. In 2004, the internal crisis it confronts Europe, François Hollande highlights sleep thinking work that he has entrusted the Aubry-Lang-DSK trio. New misunderstanding. In 2006, Martine Aubry said that François Hollande had not provided the coup de pouce hoped to get an another legislative constituency in the North. With the transfer of power at the head of the PS, in 2008, distrust becomes war. No projects, steps for archives, the empty shelves, and "even the toilet she had to repair", Martine Aubry storm openly against his predecessor, "first Secretary of the lost time". "She found the party in the State in which Laurent Blanc has recovered the France team," indignant close. Friends of Holland are excluded, the half of the permanent are replaced. It is "his Crown mortuary, a little rough", said a Socialist leader. The person concerned, he denies and does not forgive. "It is evil," concluded (1), while Martine Aubry blamed tell journalists his first difficult steps. For a time, François Hollande replicates. The policy of "care" "It is ségolénien," quips one day. "It lack a natural in the PS leader," slip another. Already, it has the presidential head and sees any interest there to take his distances with an aircraft to which his name is closely linked. In the climate of disenchantment of French policy, activists have they not chosen in 1995 the Maverick (Lionel Jospin) against the candidate of the Party (Henri Emmanuelli) In 2006, were they not preferred President of Poitou-Charentes (Ségolène Royal) to the two Chiefs of Solferino (Laurent Fabius and DSK) Bump for is empowering. He played the great escape.

At the turn of the year yet, things change. François Hollande begins to take off in the polls and to take any presidential height. His fate to sketch and, in this obstacle course that is the Supreme election "must move right, charting his path, never talk about other", theorizes. Therefore, it avoids attacks, responds only to those that we address him and gives records to his friends to do the same. "Anyway, people will move ever to a chamailleurs", warns Michel Sapin, one of his relatives.

Martine Aubry, the curve is more complicated. Concerned about gathering, she makes a point of honour to properly treat François Hollande at work on the project. It avoids the small phrases likely to emerge in the press. But his relatives, they continue. Up to Laurent Fabius, who last week, pleaded for his candidacy just emphasizing the qualities lacking in François Hollande: she was the Minister, she is a woman. "This is the sign of the nervousness," wants to believe Michel Sapin. "It is curious, a month ago, Laurent Fabius had the choice between a man and a woman, and opted for DSK," said Gérard Le Gall, following the opinion to François Hollande.

Now, the more hurtful attacks should diminish, but the background is. Martine Aubry and François Hollande does feel or not to include. Their common past has installed a distrust that it make suspicious any position... to the point where their strategic lines to highlight.

Candidate for two months in advance in the polls, François Hollande says "continue calmly his way"...It doesn't have to demonstrate that he is there by default. It fine-tunes his stature abroad (such as week Tunis last), but especially continued its almost daily movements in the province. A "low cost" campaign, said a close, slow, long, made of meetings, books, programming. A campaign centered on his ability to perform the function", note Gérard Le Gall. A nervousness supposed Martine Aubry, he opposed a calm Olympian - "mitterrandien", says Michel Sapin-, is already part of the presidential campaign and denounced "those who want to prepare the primaries as a Congress of the PS". The objective Make Martine Aubry the candidate of the apparatus when he listens to the French. "Francois Hollande plays the logic of universal suffrage," observed political scientist Gérard Grunberg. Without that it fully corresponds to reality, since it should benefit from the support of some major Socialist elected representatives.

Martine Aubry today plays the party - she appears with Ségolène Royal, left Laurent Fabius adouber it...-, but it is not excluded that it was in restricting when she enters in the field. "As it empowers, or not, the party will mark an asset or a ball," said Gérard Grunberg. In the meantime, it should build on its capacity to bring together the left. The left of the party is with her, his reports are easier with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and was far enough on the output of the nuclear hope to display a relationship standardized with environmentalists. Except that today ' today, according to voting intentions, the best second round reports are also being done on François Hollande, "at the centre, but to the left", note Gérard Le Gall. Especially, Martine Aubry intends to raise substantive debates, to push Francois Hollande on the right of the party when it claims to be "in its centre. "It will be the debate on the working classes, youth, the overlapping of mandates, reform of the pension," intones Benoît Hamon, the spokesman of the Socialist Party. Will it achieve this François Hollande is serene and prepares to detail his road map, particularly on youth, even if the package of DSK the withdraws indeed slightly optically from François.

Remaining weapon of the character, the only point on which their difference is not debate. François Hollande is reassuring, solid, listening, "normal". "It is the Reed bend but not break," said Alain Bergounioux. Martine Aubry "is never low in front of the obstacle, it is persistent, stubborn, she knows clear power", is Benoît Hamon. Different qualities to offset weakness that unites: one still missing presidential credibility in the eyes of the French.