Andreas Whittam Smith: Hats off to Madame Royal for a bold experiment

At the very least, her consultative techniques have brought fresh ideas to the debate

Yesterday afternoon, Ségolène Royal, the socialist candidate in the French presidential election, finally described how she would govern France were she elected. In a speech lasting one and a half hours, in front of 8,000 supporters, she laid out her programme.

Obstinately, Mme Royal had resisted calls to unveil her proposals earlier, as Nicolas Sarkozy, her chief rival, had done, even though this long pause seemed to be hurting her popularity in the opinion polls. For she was determined to wait until she had completed a laborious consultation with the French people, not just Socialist Party members, inviting discussion by means of participative public meetings and internet debate.

The reaction was enthusiastic. Altogether 135,000 contributions were received and 2.7 million people took part in some way. All these responses have been boiled down into a series of policy statements.

This is very bold, for only a few months ago the Socialist Party itself completed a painful internal debate from which it crafted a lengthy policy document that it expected its official candidate would follow. This was the militants' programme. But once chosen as the flag bearer, Mme Royal started again.

Yesterday she presented her proposals as a solemn pact with the French people. In effect, she said: "I have listened. I have made a synthesis of what you, the people, believe would be the best policies for France. I solemnly promise to carry out your wishes." This is a new way of doing politics, albeit it seems to be part of the spirit of the times.

As a result of Mme Royal's unconventional timing, very great expectations had been building up - so much so that yesterday afternoon's speech had come to seem like the last throw of the dice, even though the first round of the presidential election is still 10 weeks distant.

No wonder the Socialist Party secretary, François Hollande, was at pains to emphasise that "the campaign begins today". He knows as well as anybody that the moment when opinions harden during an election campaign can come at any time, sometimes early, sometimes late.

Running second behind M. Sarkozy, the party needs to keep the public mood in flux. It would be disheartening for Mme Royal if yesterday's speech left her unchanged in the opinion polls. For then it would be difficult to see how she could catch up.

In the event, Mme Royal made 100 proposals for a "fairer and stronger France", a number large enough to suggest that a Royal government would be very different from its predecessors. Among these there were inevitably some without which it would not be possible to win an election from the left. Thus she would smartly raise the minimum wage and improve state pensions. But focussing on these eye-catching promises makes her speech sound more conventional than it was.

She went through each of the big subjects in turn, cost of living, employment, education, social security, crime, environment and so on. But in each case, she adopted the same format. She first described what had been learnt from the participative debates with ordinary voters. Then she described a series of proposals derived from the views expressed.

Take the subject entitled "A New Republic". This deals with the alienation of ordinary people from the way in which the institutions of the state make decisions. She learnt that people want those for whom they vote to live lives like they do. For this reason, they strongly dislike the way in which in France the same person can be a mayor or head of a region and at the same time a member of the National Assembly and a government minister.

At the same time, those consulted would also like proportional voting to be universally used, and they are even willing to consider obligatory voting (as in Australia) with an ability to register a vote for "none of the above".

Some 18 proposals followed from these discussions. One of them, for instance would introduce participative democracy, citizen juries and the like, into all public bodies. In addition, ordinary citizens would be able to force the re-examination of a particular law if they had collected 1 million signatures to that effect.

It will not be known for a few days whether Mme Royal's new approach to politics has caught the imagination of French voters. At the very least, her consultative techniques have brought fresh and interesting ideas to the surface of political debate. Whether such participative techniques would work well over a long period of time is less certain. But they might do. And if her methods do attract an enthusiastic following, then they will be imitated elsewhere, even in this country with its very different political traditions and processes.