It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all for France’s Socialist Party.

Out of office for nine years (and out of the presidency for 16), next year’s elections are supposed to be their big opportunity, and yesterday was the official announcement of the candidates to compete in the Socialist presidential primary in October.

Nor is it an undistinguished field: party secretary Martine Aubry, her predecessor François Hollande, 2007 presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, two lesser lights of the Socialist party, Arnaud Montebourg and Manuel Valls, and Jean-Michel Baylet, head of the Left Radical Party, a junior partner of the Socialists which will also participate in the primaries.

But no one is talking about the primaries; instead, all the focus is on the continuing saga of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was front-runner for the Socialists’ nomination (and the election) until he was arrested in New York in May on charges of r-pe and s-xual assault — forcing his resignation as head of the IMF and apparently ending his political career.

The case in New York has since run into major problems, but Strauss-Kahn also faces problems back home, with a complaint of attempted r-pe made against him by French journalist Tristan Banon, based on an incident in 2002. Now Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, has told her story of also having had s-x with Strauss-Kahn, an experience that she says was consensual but which she apparently found deeply unsatisfactory.

The Socialist Party would dearly love to just cut itself loose from this whole soap opera, but the party establishment is much too deeply entwined with many of the personnel — Mansouret herself is a Socialist politician, and had at one point declared her own candidacy for the nomination. Now Hollande has been drawn into the net, being interviewed yesterday by police in Paris as to his knowledge of Banon’s complaint.

Hollande has come out fighting, saying that the case did not involve him, that he had requested to be interviewed as soon as possible in order to clear the air: “It’s an affair that concerns two people, and in no way the Socialist Party and in no way its secretary of the time.” He threatened legal action against those who attempt to implicate him in the case.

The Hollande camp claims a conspiracy, accusing Le Figaro of manipulating the latest revelations for political purposes. Aubry has also offered him her support, citing the British scandal surrounding News Corporation and the need to avoid media sensationalism. Despite all this, opinion polls are still showing the Socialists to be reasonably well placed for the election. Prior to the latest developments, Hollande was holding a narrow lead over Aubry, with Royal a distant third; in turn he was neck-and-neck in a hypothetical match with incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

Open primaries are always a risky business. The Socialists in the past have chosen their candidate by a nationwide vote of party members (that’s how Royal got the job last time despite the establishment’s scepticism). This time the process is being opened even wider, with any French voter able to participate on declaring their allegiance to the left and paying one euro to help defray costs.

That’s a commendable expression of faith in democracy. Let’s hope that it’s rewarded, and that French voters look beyond the headlines to the serious choice ahead.