I inspired Obama, claims Royal
Presidential runner-up tells le Monde that US Democratic team took lessons from Socialist campaign.
“BARACK Obama was inspired by me,” former French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal has claimed.
Socialist politician Royal, who will be attending the presidential inauguration today, albeit 200m from the stage, said: “I don’t see why I shouldn’t take responsibility: yes, I inspired Obama and his team has copied us.”
According to Le Monde Obama sent a team to France during the run-up to the 2007 presidential election to study her campaign website Désir d’Avenir.
“It was from us that they got the idea of ‘win-win’, or of ‘citizen-expert’,” Royal said.
He then adapted her vision of “participative demomocracy” to American politics, she said. She described this as listening to different community groups, whether ethnic, religious, cultural or urban, and creating a new kind of relationship between the people and the political elite.
Royal has described Obama’s inauguration as “a key moment in this century” and “a turning point towards the future,” adding: “This American boldness must shine out across the world.”
Her remarks come as the British Labour government are sending a team to the US to pick up election tips from the Democracts – little knowing that the true architect of his success is just a Eurostar trip away.
Photo: Original by Guillaumepaumier, Obama-ised courtesy of http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/
