Commentary: How far left should socialists steer?

PARIS, France (CNN) -- They pushed and plotted, elbowed and jabbed -- and then voted and voted. After months of maneuvering and debates, and weeks of party polling, the opposition Socialist Party in France finally came up with a party leader.

It was a nasty confrontation between two of the country's most powerful women, each with her own presidential ambitions.

The first, Segolene Royal, is more well-known outside France because she ran a losing presidential campaign against Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.

The second candidate, Martine Aubry, is more well known inside France beacuse of her fundamentalist approach to socialism and her creation of France's much-loved 35-hour work week.

In the end, Aubry barely won the party election, by 102 votes out of the 137,000 cast by card-carrying party members.

Royal at first cried fraud, hinting at treachery at the polling places, and her supporters threatened to take the party leaders to court.

But then, Royal addressed her true believers over the Internet, telling them "it's the time for unity." She made clear, however, that the unity only goes so far, saying she'll be back for another round in the next presidential election.

It's sad, said one party member. And from the party faithful right up the hierarchy, the whole tawdry spectacle, which seemed centered more on personalities than policy, left socialists angry and disappointed. Even some socialist leaders were critical of their own party.

"There is among the socialist people a lack of vision, a lack of imagination, a lack of enthusiasm," said senior party activist and former Minister of Culture Jack Lang.

On the other side of the political fence, there certainly were no tears shed at the socialists' debacle, but no gloating either.

"We have seen in the left wing what we have lived 10 years ago in the right wing. The fact is that at that time we had fights between our leaders and no real propositions," said Jean-Francois Cope, leader of the majority UMP party.

Therein lies a larger problem, because even with what some called the "leadership soap opera" settled, the socialists now must decide, especially given the world financial crisis, if the kind of traditional left-wing doctrine their new leader has always advocated is the best way to go.

Patrick Jarreau, editor-in-chief of Le Monde, raises the same question as many socialists: "Is social democracy the right answer to the crisis in the financial system or must the socialists invent something new, and what?"

The debate about how far to the left left-wing parties should veer is not unique to France. Leftist parties elsewhere in Europe have been arguing over exactly the same issue, but few have witnessed the kind of spectacular fireworks the French socialists went through with their two determined rivals, in a power struggle that appears over -- for the moment.

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