Ségolène Royal

Ségolène Royal (born September 22nd, 1953, in Dakar, Senegal) was the first woman to represent a major political party in the French presidential election of May 2007, when she ran against Nicolas Sarkozy as the Socialist Party candidate, holding her own in a series of riveting debates though she lost the election. She is president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council, a former government minister and former member of the National Assembly, and expects to vie for the candidacy in the presidential election of 2012. Bernard-Henri Lévy was one of the advisors she relied on heavily during the 2007 campaign. According to La Femme fatale, the post-election work of Ariane Chemin et Raphaele Bacqué (Albin Michel), BHL "became, in the space of a few weeks, one of Ségolène Royal’s confidents." From January on, they wrote, «the philosopher and the candidate telephoned each other several times a day. She consulted him before every television appearance; she called him after every meeting. In emergencies and when turbulence appeared in the skies of the campaign, he would receive her unexpectedly at his home, on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, a few doors down from her campaign headquarters.” In “a few months," they added "the intellectual had earned her friendship. He read poetry to her and sent film director Josée Dayan to give her a hand with her official campaign videos. He sensed the fatigue of the campaign, her weariness and her concern. Didn’t he compliment her kindly, praising her ‘striking freshness’ and her ’long and lovely neck’ in one of his columns? One day he suggested she try a chignon, and she wore one the following day to the studios of Europe 1 [radio station].” In the weekly newsmagazine Le Point of April 26, 2007, Bernard-Henri Lévy spoke of "Ségolène Royal’s style, her allure, her decidedly new way of dealing in politics, and of talking politics.” On May 10th, after her defeat, he wrote, "I like this last image during the last debate. I admired the stature she gained at that moment, and the fine straightforwardness in her gaze and in her bearing. She honored the left with this directness. And she honored France.” And, in a conversation with Anaëlle Lebovits and Deborah Guterman, published in the political review Le Diable Probablement in the spring of 2009, he added, "Ségolène Royal rapidly struck me as a beautiful, attractive, fascinating, individual, one who provided me with a good deal of material for the imagination.” In a book written and published after the election, Ségolène Royal confided, “I had the infinitely precious support of a French philosopher who had the reputation of being a far cry from all I could represent. Initially sceptical, he turned out to be solid and faithful in the face of any ordeal throughout the campaign and—even more rare—afterwards.” (Ma plus belle histoire, c’est vous, Grasset, 2007, page 106). "The talent, the gaiety, the intelligence and the will to win were catching, and sometimes, when fatigue would make my features drawn and he would repeat his favourite phrase ‘You are extremely beautiful!’, I knew it was an exaggeration. But it made me laugh and, I confess, couldn’t possibly do me any harm.”