Last week le Parti Socialiste, the party of no ideas, voted its electoral platform (Réussir ensemble le changement, Together Making Change Work) for 2007, a package of recycled socialist mush and blandishments.

Favored presidential contender Ségolène Royal embraced the platform's socialist orthodoxy having challenged it only days earlier (and this).

"The programme will be the programme of every [PS] candidate for the presidential election. Of course it will be. That's what it is for," [Mme. Royal] told RTL radio.

Oh, yes. Certainly -- well, unless it isn't.

But Mme. Royal's appeal doesn't look to be party orthodoxy.

FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL VOTED ONE OF SEXIEST WOMEN

PARIS June 12, 2006 (Telegraph) - Ségolène Royal, the French Left's main presidential candidate, has been elected the world's sixth sexiest woman, beating scores of international sex symbols including Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Hurley and Penelope Cruz.

CAN SEX SELL SOCIALISM?
Jack: SOLD!

The surprise victory in a survey on the "100 sexiest women in the world, 2006" for the French edition of the men's monthly magazine FHM, is being hailed as a boost to Miss Royal's chances of winning the French presidential elections next year.

The 52-year-old mother of four [no ranking last year] left Penelope Cruz (15th [last year #44]), Jennifer Lopez (34th [last year #4]), Liz Hurley (41st [last year #57]) and Italian film star Monica Bellucci (91st [last year #9]) trailing, and was only two places behind the American actress Angelina Jolie [last year #2]. Top of the poll was Adriana Karembeu, the French-Slovak supermodel and wife of former international French footballer, Christian Karembeu [no ranking last year].

[Mme. Royal] can now claim to be the first politician to have featured on FHM's annual list.

Last year she had an upper tooth straightened, prompting the newspaper Libération to jest: "The French people's favourite Socialist is now endowed with an American smile."

"She plays on her beauty," Georges Chetochine, a sociologist told the paper. "She wears light clothes - never dark. Her well studied make-up is pale as well, in order to light up her face. She wears dresses not trousers and has a young hairstyle: how would you know she was over 50?" She has also worked on her voice, scrapping a high, aggressive timbre for sultry, lower tones.

Miss Royal, the president of the Poitou-Charent region, will no doubt value her ranking more than Jacques Chirac, who was recently awarded FHM's "Most Corrupt Man in the West" prize.

[All emphases added.]

Now a charismatic leader can lead a people somewhere. And a charismatic leader with no ideas can lead a people nowhere. But whither "sexy"? Where can "sexy" lead a people? "Sexy" may be enough to get Mme. Royal elected in a nation of superficial philosophes, especially an electorate desperate to clean sweep the incumbent government. But how does "sexy" translate into socialist policy? So far Mme. Royal appears all Eva and little Evita.

PFFT (What is this?): Sexy appeal 4 | Sexy public policy 0 | Rayonnement français 0