Hollande in Firing Line as French Coalition Strains Show

France's Socialist-led government was in disarray on Monday as lingering controversy over the deportation of a Roma family and a divisive primary vote in Marseille exposed deep-lying tensions in the ruling coalition.

President Francois Hollande's weekend intervention in a row over the fate of 15-year-old Leonarda Dibrani and her family has exacerbated divisions between right and left within the government alliance of the Socialist Party and the Greens.

By offering to allow Leonarda but not her siblings or parents to return to France from Kosovo, Hollande pleased virtually no one, and his clumsy attempt to close the debate has only served to enhance his reputation for dithering -- or "cartoonish indecisiveness", in the words employed by one opposition leader, Francois Fillon.

Against that background, the Socialists could have done without the primary to select their candidate to be the next mayor of Marseille ending in an acrimonious public display of hostility towards the party's leadership.

Instead, defeated candidate Samia Ghali, who has emerged as a voice for the city's poorest neighborhoods, publicly accused the party machine of ganging up against her and launched an attack on Hollande and his prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, over unhonored promises of aid to the city.

The speech got the reaction it sought, leaving Socialist spin doctors to try and explain why Hollande and Ayrault were being publicly booed and jeered at by activists in their own party.

Dissent was not restricted to the grass roots. Harlem Desir, the First Secretary of the party, made it clear he disagreed with Hollande's handling of the Leonarda case, as did the Greens, who published a statement characterizing the president's offer to the girl as "inhuman".

A group of 25 leftwing Socialist deputies who have formed a group called "The Lasting Left" issued a statement expressing their exasperation over the government's economic and social policies.

'Every time Hollande opens his mouth it leads to more criticism'

"A dyke has been breached," said Bruno Jeanbart, a political analyst for the OpinionWay consultancy. "The unpopularity of Hollande has created a sense within the coalition that anyone can rebel against the government.

"What's changed is that the criticism is now coming from the heart of the left, whereas at the start of his time in office it was restricted to the far left and the Greens."

Philippe Braud, a professor of politics at the Sciences Po university in Paris, agreed.

"Hollande's authority has been considerably weakened for some time. His approval ratings are very weak and he has lost so much credibility that every time he opens his mouth it just leads to more criticism," Braud said.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls, whose backing for the expulsion of Leonarda and her family has won broad backing from voters, called on Socialist deputies to call an end to the damaging internal squabbling.

"The situation is sufficiently difficult without us ourselves creating disorder within our ranks," Valls said Monday.

Hollande's offer for Leonarda to return to France without her family was given short shrift by the teenager at the weekend.

"I'm not the only one who has to go to school, there are also my brothers and sisters," she said from the town of Mitrovica in Kosovo, where she has been living with her family since their October 9 deportation.

Leonarda's arrest by French police during a school trip and the subsequent deportation of her family triggered a wave of protests by high-school students across France and the reaction on the streets has galvanized Hollande's opponents within his own party.

An investigation into the Leonarda case concluded that the deportation was lawful but that police could have used better judgement in the way they handled it.

Officials say the family's asylum request was rejected seven times before an expulsion order was finally issued.