Site is Royal mess says Obama team
Democrat campaigners in Paris admit Ségolène Royal’s site inspired Obama election team – to do completely the opposite.
SEGOLENE Royal’s website did inspire Barack Obama – to do completely the opposite, Democrat campaigners in Paris have claimed.
The vice-president of the Obama campaign team in Paris, Archippe Yepmou told l’Express magazine that a US election team who visited the capital during the French presidential election did comment on the Socialist politician’s site saying it was ‘weak’ and ‘confusing’.
Mr Yepmou added members of the team had preferred the site of Nicolas Sarkozy which carried a stronger, centralised political message and made better use of videos.
Before heading off to the inauguration of Barack Obama, French presidential runner-up Royal, who in November failed to secure the leadership of the Socialist Party – told Le Monde newspaper that she had “inspired” Obama and his team and that they had “copied” her ideas.
She said the Obama team had taken the ideas of “win-win” and “citizen experts” from her site Désirs d'Avenir.
“It’s total bull,” said Mr Yepmou who added that the team that visited Paris during the 2007 French presidential elections was a bi-partisan group who met with Nicolas Sarkozy and center party presidential candidate François Bayrou but not Ségolène Royal.
He said that Democrat members had seen Désirs d'Avenir and commented on “the weakness of the campaign of Ségolène Royal” and its lack of coherence.
“The problem with Désirs D'Avenir is the fact that during the presidential campaign there was no unity in the message coming from the internet with all the different blogs on the site,” said Mr Yepmou.
“What is the ‘Yes we can’ of Ségolène? No one can tell us,” he said and added that the site more closely resembled that of 2004 Democrat primary candidate Howard Dean whose campaign made an initial success of using the internet to gather support.
Democrats of Paris member Anna Kraaks said that there were some similarities between Royal and Obama.
“The spirit of the ideas of Ségolène is universel, shared by a lot of people including including Barack Obama,” she said but added: “American politics is fundamentally different to French or European politics.”
Ms Kraaks said she doubted that Barack Obama had the time to read the 100 propositions put forward in Royal’s election manifesto.
STORY: I inspired Obama, claims Royal
Photo: A mock-up video of Royal winning the 2012 French presidential election on her website
