Aubry, Martine

   b.1950

   Daughter of Jacques Delors, Martine Aubry is a French socialist politician, elected as leader of the Socialist Party (PS) in November 2008 after a fierce contest with her centre-left rival Ségolène Royal. As minister of employment in the Jospin government from 1997 to 2000, Aubry is best known for having introduced the statutory 35-hour working week into French labour law, a move heavily criticized by her political opponents, as having severly damaged France's international competitiveness and thereby boosted unemployment rather than reducing it. Though the Jospin government to which she belonged was committed to getting rid of "cumul des mandats", Aubry in early 2009 was simultaneously first secretary of the Socialist Party, Mayor of Lille, and president of the Lille metropolitan area. As leader of the PS, she has been much criticised from within, firstly for her very narrow margin of victory in the leadership contest (50.04%), secondly for being a "three-day-week" leader of the PS (the rest of the week being devoted to her functions in Lille) and thirdly for leading the party to its worst electoral score, in the 2009 European elections, where the Socialists obtained under 15% of the vote, just a short way in front of the Green party.

   Since the Strauss-Kahn affair rocked the Socialist party in 2011, Aubry is seen as one of the two main contenders for nomination as the PS's candidate in the French 2012 Presidential election - the other being her predecessor the more social democratic François Hollande.