In a first for the French republic, the socialists are organising open primaries to select their candidate for next year's presidential election.
What is new this year is that the primary is open to all voters (in 2006, for the 2007 presidential election, there were also primaries but voting was limited to party members, ie roughly 200,000 people) - so a couple million people are expected to vote (all they have to do is pay 1 euro as a contribution to logistical costs and sign a declaration that they share "the values of the left").
Vote is happening in two rounds - the first one today, with 6 candidates, and a second one next Sunday if no candidate gets 50% this time, in a run-off between the top two candidates of the first round.