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Socialist booing and heckling irks Royal
Socialist frontrunner Segolene Royal berated party opponents yesterday for booing and heckling her at a campaign debate.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 October 28, 2006
Paris: Socialist frontrunner Segolene Royal berated party opponents yesterday for booing and heckling her at a campaign debate.
She demanded that her rivals in the race for the French presidency show more respect.
Royal was jeered and cheered in equal measure by more than 5,000 Socialist activists during a lively debate on Thursday night between the three candidates vying for the party's presidential ticket.
Although she is well ahead in the opinion polls, many Socialist members accuse Royal of peddling populist policies and harangued her when she defended her controversial proposals for creating "citizen juries" to oversee the work of lawmakers.
"Socialists should not jeer each other. I don't understand what happened," Royal told reporters after the robust encounter. "I hope that this will be the first and last time that this happens during this long campaign."
Speaking later to France Info radio, Royal told her opponents, former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and ex-Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to muzzle their supporters.
"I think everyone has to calm their troops," she said. "There has to be mutual respect and I note that I am the only one since the start of this process who never criticises the others, who never twists their words."
Fabius was also booed on Thursday when he referred to Europe. He defied party orders last year to campaign against the EU constitution, which was subsequently sunk in a referendum.
After the debate he shrugged off the heated atmosphere. "We can't have the silence of a cathedral here," he said.
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