LEFT AT THE STARTING BLOCKS

By THOMAS SANCTON PARIS

With his professorial looks and wooden rhetoric, Lionel Jospin is nobody's idea of a charismatic candidate. His detractors claim he is boring, strident and stiff as a broom handle; the best his supporters can say about him is that he is earnest, honest and faithful to Socialist ideals. Yet the onetime economics teacher and former Education Minister pulled off a small miracle last week: within two days of winning the Socialist Party's presidential nomination, he saw his poll ratings rise four points. The modest increase was the first sign that the beleaguered Socialists might actually survive into the second and final round of the presidential election on May 7.

That would be a moral victory at best, since political analysts are virtually unanimous in predicting an easy win for Gaullist Prime Minister Edouard Balladur. Jospin's task thus will be to heal, as best he can, the rifts in his divided party and put in a credible performance against Balladur. If he fails on either count--and especially if he is eliminated in the first round on April 23--the party that swept Francois Mitterrand into the Elysee in 1981 and dominated French politics for the better part of a decade could split apart or collapse like an overripe Camembert.

The Socialists' troubles began long before the current campaign. They have been reeling since March 1993, when the conservatives crushed them in legislative elections and forced Mitterrand to share power with a hostile conservative majority. From that point on, the party, which has lost nearly half its members since 1981, has been in free fall. The low point was a dismal 14% showing in last June's European parliamentary elections, which prompted party leader Michel Rocard's resignation and thereby eliminated the most obvious Socialist presidential candidate.

Scrambling to find a new standard bearer, party chieftains turned last fall to outgoing European Commission president Jacques Delors, who was then leading in the opinion polls. But Delors stunned everyone by announcing that he would not run, largely for personal reasons. ``Everyone was ready for Delors,'' says Henri Weber, a party official. ``When he said no, Rocard could have stepped forward again, but he just didn't want to do it. All the undisputed candidates disappeared.''

Into the void stepped three second- echelon pretenders: Jospin, 57; party leader Henri Emmanuelli, 49; and flamboyant former Culture Minister Jack Lang, 55. Though he was the most popular, Lang bowed out at the last minute, leaving the austere Jospin to fight it out with the more hard-line, proletarian Emmanuelli.

With no fundamental policy differences between the candidates, the contest boiled down to one of personal and factional rivalries. Jospin appealed to the civil servants who make up an important part of the party's base; he also enjoyed the support of Rocardians, Delorists and others who hope to ``renovate'' the party by replacing its class-based ideology with a more modern, social democratic approach. The beetle-browed Emmanuelli, with his old-style leftist rhetoric, was more attractive to working-class voters and had the support of most party stalwarts, including former Prime Minister and longtime Jospin enemy Laurent Fabius. Emmanuelli's hold on the party machinery was so strong that many observers thought he had a lock on the nomination, even though polls showed him to be the weaker candidate.

As the nomination battle intensified, the party seemed to be on the verge of imploding. ``If we can't have victory, at least give us back our dignity, our principles, our sense of duty, and stop the massacre,'' implored Rocard on the front page of Le Monde. Former Environment Minister Segolene Royal, 41, a rising star, warned shrilly of ``two trains hurtling toward each other at top speed'' and resigned as president of the Socialists' national committee in protest against the bitter infighting. Mitterrand tried to calm the waters by saying he would be hard pressed to choose between his ``two longtime companions''--though aides later indicated he preferred Emmanuelli.

In fact, Mitterrand is a big part of the Socialists' problem. His 14 years in power have left the voters yearning for change, a disaffection that has rubbed off on the party. His second seven-year term has been rocked by financial scandals, many involving close friends and associates, and by revelations of his onetime flirtation with the far right. His illness--he has cancer of the prostate--has left a virtual power vacuum that has allowed Balladur to expand his role and stature. Finally, the Socialists are paying the price for Mitterrand's incessant political scheming, which led him to pit potential successors against one another instead of anointing an heir apparent.

``Mitterrand refused to choose,'' says Sorbonne University professor Olivier Duhamel. ``He thought he alone could carry the left, and that the failure of the Socialists would be another proof of his genius.'' Others argue that the Socialist Party, formed in 1971 as an electoral vehicle for Mitterrand, has outlived its usefulness. ``The party has no more raison d'etre,'' says Rocard adviser Guy Carcassonne. ``Until another leader comes along who can mold it in his image, it will be in a disastrous state.''

While it is doubtful the lackluster Jospin can play that role, he did surprise many observers by getting 65.8% of his fellow party members to buck the wishes of the apparatchiks and vote for him in the Feb. 4 primary. ``The party machine has been discredited,'' says Roland Cayrol, president of the CSA polling organization. ``The rank and file showed that they can decide things for themselves without taking orders.'' The result, he adds, ``is a real blow to Fabius,'' who plans to run in 2002 and wanted to eliminate Jospin as a potential rival.

Jospin's choice was also bad news for Jacques Chirac. The Paris mayor, a Gaullist, hopes to face Balladur in the runoff and pick up enough leftist votes to close the gap. Jospin's post-nomination bump in the polls put him neck and neck with Chirac in one survey and two points ahead in another, threatening to eliminate the conservative in the first round.

Not that there was much danger of a Socialist victory. Barring some Balladur misstep, most analysts predict Jospin will have to fight hard to win 45% in the second round. ``I think the election is already played out,'' says Jean-Luc Parodi, a polling expert and professor at Paris' Institute of Political Studies. ``Balladur is already elected in people's minds. For him, the real challenge will come after the election. His honeymoon is already behind him.''

Jospin too can expect postelection turbulence. A weak showing will surely re- open factional wounds, and even a respectable score may not ensure party unity. ``The knives have only been slipped back into the Socialists' pockets,'' says Pascal Perrineau, director of the Center for the Study of French Political Life. ``After the voting, they will come out again.''