Socialist hopes

13 July 2011 Last updated at 00:07 GMT By Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris Francois Hollande was Socialist leader but has never been in government Whichever politician wins the Socialist Party primary will go into the spring 2012 presidential election as favourite to be the next French head of state.

That fact alone should mean a mood of eager confidence. In theory, the Socialists are poised to retake power from the right after a gap of 17 years.

But something is not quite right, and the Socialists themselves feel it. Deep down they know that the struggle to unseat President Nicolas Sarkozy will be much harder than they thought.

As nominations close on Wednesday for the October primary, all eyes are on two frontrunners: the current and former party leaders Martine Aubry and Francois Hollande.

There are four other declared candidates: Segolene Royal, who lost against Mr Sarkozy in 2002; two leaders of the younger generation, Manuel Valls and Arnaud Montebourg; and the head of the Radical Left Party, Jean-Michel Baylet.

In addition there is the great might-have-been across the Atlantic.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, disgraced then partially rehabilitated in the New York chambermaid scandal, cannot be ruled out as a last-minute entrant.

There has even been talk of the Socialists extending the nomination deadline to give their one-time favourite, the former IMF chief, the chance to run.

However, the odds of a DSK candidacy look slimmer by the minute. Leaving aside the practical question of his ongoing court case, Mr Strauss-Kahn has suffered badly in the eyes of French opinion. His political ambitions are most likely now on hold.

Open vote

This year for the first time the Socialists have chosen an American-style open primary, rather than a poll of party members, to choose their presidential candidate.

After three months of campaigning, a first round of voting will be held on 9 October. Any French adult can take part who is willing to pay a nominal fee of one euro and sign a pledge that they support "the values of the left".

If no candidate reaches 50% of the vote in round one, the top two qualify for a second round a week later.

The Socialists hope that on 16 October a left-wing champion will thereby emerge with the legitimacy of having been chosen by perhaps three or four million primary voters, not just by the party faithful.

No longer will the party face criticism for being inward-looking and dominated by factional interests. This way the candidate will have a genuine popular mandate to take on Mr Sarkozy in April.

On the face of it there are plenty of reasons for the Socialists to be optimistic as the election season looms.

Their great hope DSK may no longer be in the picture, but polls still show both Ms Aubry and Mr Hollande easily capable of beating Mr Sarkozy.

According to a survey conducted by BVA for the French regional press this week, Ms Aubry would come first in round one of the election with 28% to Mr Sarkozy's 24%, and 17% to far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Mr Hollande would have 31%, against 23% for Mr Sarkozy and 16% to Ms Le Pen. Both Mr Hollande and Ms Aubry would then go on to clear victory in the second round head-to-head with Mr Sarkozy.

Weak spots

The incumbent president is a divisive and unpopular figure. Though his poll-ratings have edged up from their rock-bottom levels in recent weeks, he has never captured the heart of the French people like his two predecessors, Jacques Chirac and Francois Mitterrand, managed to do.

He is a hate-figure for the left; and on the right, many who believed he would let them "earn more by working harder" feel disappointed by failed economic promises. Others simply dislike his character.

Given all that - and with the country's collective state of mind so fearful and uncertain - an effective left-wing opposition leader should surely be a shoo-in.

So why is it that the prevailing sentiment among Socialists is not optimism, but doubt?

As the left-wing newspaper Liberation put it in an editorial Monday: "Despite the continuing disaffection for Nicolas Sarkozy, a [Socialist] victory is far from preordained."

There are several reasons. The first centres on the candidates themselves.

Ms Aubry and Mr Hollande have plenty of qualities, but they have weak spots too. Mr Hollande, for example - despite a long political career - has never once been in government.

Nicolas Sarkozy has some catching up to do in the polls

As for Ms Aubry, her public persona can be severe and humourless. And even her friends admit she long doubted whether to run for the presidency. Many question whether she has the appetite for the job.

A second problem is the party's manifesto, which Mr Sarkozy's UMP party can too easily portray as backward-looking and doctrinaire.

One commitment is to reverse Mr Sarkozy's reform raising the age of retirement. Another is to create 300,000 state sector jobs for young people. Ideas like these are crowd-pleasers for the left, but the voting public is sceptical.

The third problem is the endemic factionalism which the primaries are intended to resolve but in fact can only mask.

The personal and political divisions inside the French Socialist Party are so deep-rooted that no-one is fooled by outward manifestations of unity and brotherly love.

As long as DSK was the uncrowned "king across the water", this could be overlooked. What all Socialists agreed on was Mr Strauss-Kahn's vote-winning potential, so as they awaited his return they learned to contain their differences in the interest of ultimate victory.

Desperate for win

But now that Mr Strauss-Kahn is almost certainly out of the race, the lid is off. Ms Aubry may insist that she "has only one enemy and that is Nicolas Sarkozy." In the immediate term, everyone knows that her main adversary is Francois Hollande.

So the big risk for the Socialists is that the primaries turn not into a consecration of unity, but the political equivalent of a bar-room scrap.

If that happens, then the number of people bothering to turn out in October will collapse - and the whole legitimacy of the exercise will be even further undermined.

The Socialist Party has not won a presidential election in France since 1988. Its only president since World War II has been Francois Mitterrand.

If they want to show the world that they are still a relevant force in French politics, then they need desperately to win the presidentials next year.

It should not be that hard. And yet somehow it is.

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Nadal ends Murray's hopes again

By Piers Newbery
BBC Sport at Wimbledon Venue: All England Club, LondonDate: 20 June-3 JulyCoverage: Live on BBC One, Two, 3D, HD, Red Button, online (UK only), Radio 5 live, 5 live sports extra; live text commentary from 0900 BST on BBC Sport website (#bbctennis); watch again on iPlayer Nadal beats Murray at Wimbledon

Rafael Nadal ended the Wimbledon hopes of British number one Andy Murray for the second year in a row with a four-set victory in their semi-final.

The defending champion from Spain came through 5-7 6-2 6-2 6-4 and will play Novak Djokovic in Sunday's final.

And while Nadal targets a third Wimbledon and 11th Grand Slam win, Murray is still without a major title.

The Scot has now lost three successive Wimbledon semi-finals, and the wait for a British champion goes on.

Fred Perry remains the last homegrown men's singles champion with his 1936 triumph, and there is every chance that Murray will one day have to find a way past Nadal - one year his senior at 25 - if he is to ever get his hands on the Wimbledon trophy.

Murray had won only four of his previous 15 matches against Nadal, and lost in straight sets at the same stage of Wimbledon last year.

There was an early scare for the Briton when the trainer was called at 2-1 to deliver pain killers as a hip injury appeared to have flared up, but he waved the assistance away when he returned at the next changeover.

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A first half-chance came for Murray at 3-2, 30-30, but he missed with a forehand and it was Nadal who then pressed hard at 5-5, twice getting to deuce in a lengthy game.

A tie-break loomed but Nadal, who came into the match with a lingering foot injury, played a loose game at 5-6 to fall 0-40 down, and gave up the set with a backhand into the net.

The momentum was well and truly with Murray and he had a great chance at 2-1, 15-30, in the second set but fired an inviting mid-court forehand long and it appeared to derail him.

A double-fault gave Nadal a break point in the following game and Murray blazed a smash over the baseline to fall 3-2 behind, before another sloppy service game all but handed over the set.

It might only have been one set all, but Murray's hopes seemed to be hanging in the balance as early as the start of the third and, after saving two break points with a volley and an ace, he missed with a forehand on the third to lose his sixth straight game.

Nadal sympathy for Murray

Nadal was in the groove now and made it seven in a row, clamping down on unforced errors to such an extent that a loose forehand at 3-2 was his first since the opening set.

The Spaniard powered through the rest of the set and tore into Murray at the start of the fourth, ripping a forehand down the line for 15-40 and getting the break when the Briton netted a forehand.

Murray had a lifeline with two break points in game four but Nadal chose the moment to attack the net and volley into the open court, before pummelling his way to safety with some heavy forehands on the second.

Nadal will lose his number one ranking to Djokovic no matter the result of Sunday's final, but he looked supreme as he finished off Murray after nearly three hours and extended his winning run at Wimbledon to 20 matches.

Murray breaks Rafa to win first set

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High hopes

3 June 2011 Last updated at 15:46 GMT By David Loyn BBC News, Misrata Rebel fighters had hoped the first raids by British and French helicopters would take place on Thursday The first strikes by British and French attack helicopters on Col Gaddafi's forces in Libya are expected any time.

The political decision to employ this weapons system was made a week ago, but already British army Apaches had been carrying out exercises in the Mediterranean from their launch platform, HMS Ocean, now the largest ship in the Royal Navy.

The Apaches are each armed with 16 Hellfire missiles, which skim low across the landscape, map-reading their way to a target pre-set by radar in the Apache before launch.

The helicopters can sit at a distance of up to five miles (8 km) from its target, using the terrain to conceal themselves from detection. They are also armed with 30mm cannons, but are unlikely to engage closely enough with Col Gaddafi's forces to use them.

There are understood to be four operational Apaches on board the HMS Ocean

There are understood to be four operational Apaches on board the Ocean, which will launch attacks in two pairs.

An unknown number of French Tiger helicopters are on board the French warship, the Tonnerre.

They have a similar capability to Apaches, and would normally also be armed with Hellfire missiles.

The French are also expected to deploy Gazelle helicopters. They can carry missiles, but are likely to play a supporting role, assessing battle damage and likely future targets.

Rebel fighters on front lines surrounding their enclave of Misrata were hoping the first raids would come on Thursday night.

But very high winds swept the North African coast all night, and would have made it hazardous to take off or land from a warship.

Tanks destroyed

Fatih Bashagha, the Nato co-ordinator for rebel forces in Misrata, has been sending co-ordinates for attack by planes.

He said that the helicopters will make a big difference because of their ability to fly lower and identify targets such as tanks and Grad rocket launching positions.

There has been some debate between rebel leaders over whether to advance further

Mr Bashagha is a businessman, whose most recent military experience was as an instructor for the Libyan air force 17 years ago.

"I am happy they are coming. The fighters are happy," he said.

In British army doctrine, Apaches have replaced tanks. That is why the pilots come from the army, not the Royal Air Force.

Their role with conventionally trained infantry is to look over the heads of any advance, destroying threats such as tanks and artillery.

But the force they are supporting is far from conventional.

Most of Misrata's fighters had not handled a weapon until last month, and their undoubted bravery and motivation does not compensate for a lack of technical skill or tactical direction.

Rather than taking over tanks that were abandoned in the city when Col Gaddafi's forces were defeated, they destroyed them as they did not know how to use them.

For three weeks now the rebels have held front-line positions at the border of the Misrata district, where they settled after pushing government troops out of the city, taking high casualties in the process.

One of the key leaders of the urban resistance, Salahuddin Baji, is now the main commander on the southern front.

Here the front line is less clearly marked than elsewhere, meandering through olive groves and scrubby farmland, where shepherds still graze their sheep.

'Give encouragement'

Mr Baji said that the arrival of helicopters shows that Nato is "serious" in its support for the rebel cause.

When an advance is ordered, this southern force will try to sweep to the west, sandwiching government troops.

"We will surround Gaddafi's forces and destroy them," he says.

But whether Libya's makeshift rebel army moves forward is more a political than a military decision. There has been some internal debate between rebel leaders over whether they should advance further.

Rebel commanders say they are liaising with resistance fighters in Zlitan, close to Misrata

They are taking casualties where they are because government forces know their precise position.

But they do not want to over-reach themselves and appear as invaders rather than liberators in the next district of Zlitan.

Their overall leader, Ramadan Zarmouh, told me that they are liaising with resistance fighters in Zlitan, and want them to stage an uprising.

"If they start, then we will go in and give them encouragement. If they take the centre of Zlitan then all of the district will rise up, and we can attack from the east," he said.

But all of Misrata's fighters know the cost of delay, after the savagery of Col Gaddafi's forces here.

Mr Zarmouh said he "would hate to see Zlitan destroyed like Misrata".

Libya's rebels have high hopes in what helicopters can do, but they know they are not a magic bullet, and there will still have to be hard fighting on the ground if they are to dislodge Col Gaddafi's regime.

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High hopes

24 May 2011 Last updated at 07:04 GMT By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Skylon would operate from a runway A revolutionary UK spaceplane concept has been boosted by the conclusions of an important technical review.

The proposed Skylon vehicle would do the job of a big rocket but operate like an airliner, taking off and landing at a conventional runway.

The European Space Agency's propulsion experts have assessed the details of the concept and found no showstoppers.

They want the next phase of development to include a ground demonstration of its key innovation - its Sabre engine.

This power unit is designed to breathe oxygen from the air in the early phases of flight - just like jet engines - before switching to full rocket mode as the Skylon vehicle climbs out of the atmosphere.

It is the spaceplane's "single-stage-to-orbit" operation and its re-usability that makes Skylon such an enticing prospect and one that could substantially reduce the cost of space activity, say its proponents.

Mature concept

The UK Space Agency (UKSA) had commissioned Esa to evaluate the design, and the European organisation's staff reported on Tuesday that they had not seen any obvious flaws.

"Esa has not identified any critical topics that would prevent a successful development of the engine," they write in their review.

Skylon has been in development in the UK in various guises for nearly 30 years.

It is an evolution of an idea first pursued by British Aerospace and Rolls Royce in the 1980s.

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From what we've seen so far, we can't identify any showstoppers”

End Quote Dr Mark Ford Esa's head of propulsion engineering That concept, known as Hotol, did have technical weaknesses that eventually led the aerospace companies to end their involvement.

But the engineers behind the project continued to refine their thinking and they are now working independently on a much-updated vehicle in a company called Reaction Engines Limited (REL).

Realising the Sabre propulsion system is essential to the success of the project.

The engine would burn hydrogen and oxygen to provide thrust - but in the lower atmosphere this oxygen would be taken directly from the air.

This means the 84m-long spaceplane can fly lighter from the outset with a higher thrust-to-weight ratio, enabling it to make a single leap to orbit, rather than using and dumping propellant stages on the ascent - as is the case with current expendable rockets.

But flying an integrated air-breathing and rocket engine brings unique challenges.

At high speeds, Sabre would have to manage 1,000-degree gasses entering its intake. This hot air would need to be cooled prior to being compressed and burnt with hydrogen. Reaction Engines' answer is a novel precooler heat-exchanger.

This would incorporate arrays of extremely fine piping to extract the heat and plunge the intake gases to minus 130C in just 1/100th of a second.

Ordinarily, the moisture in the air would be expected to freeze out rapidly, covering the network of fine piping in a blanket of frost and dislocating its operation.

Regulatory support

But REL says it has developed an anti-frost solution that will allow the heat exchanger to run and run. Esa's technical staff have witnessed this "secret technology" on the lab bench and can confirm it works. The agency's experts say they also fully expect a scaled up version of the precooler technology to function properly this summer when it is tested in conjunction with a standard jet engine.

"We've not looked at everything; we've focussed on the engine and the [Skylon's] structure," explained Dr Mark Ford, Esa's head of propulsion engineering. "But from what we've seen so far, we can't identify any showstoppers. It's quite an innovative technology if it works."

Assuming, this summer's test programme does indeed achieve its goals, Reaction Engines says private investors will release ?220m ($350m) of funds to take Skylon into the next phase of its development.

This would include the production of a ground demonstrator that would show off Sabre's full engine cycle - its air-breathing and rocket modes and the transition between the two.

Sabre's precooler technology will be put through its paces on a test rig this summer

The price for launching a kilogram of payload into a geostationary orbit - the location for today's big telecoms satellites - is currently more than $15,000 (?9,000). Skylon's re-usability could bring that down to less than $1,000, claims REL.

If the vehicle ever does go into full production, the investment required will probably be in the region of $9-12bn (?5.5-7.5bn), but the company will not be looking to government for that money.

"The government hasn't got that sort of money and we want this project to be a privately financed one," said Alan Bond, the managing director of REL.

"What government can do for us however is deal with the legislation that surrounds the eventual introduction of a spaceplane - how it is certified and how it conforms to certain aspects of international space law. And the government has already indicated its willingness to do all this in the recent budget."

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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