(MADRID) - The new leader of France's opposition Socialist Party, Martine Aubry, called Monday for the establishment of a new economic model in the wake of the global financial crisis.

"Liberal global governance and financial liberalism have suffered a social, moral and economic failure," she told a meeting of European socialists in Madrid.

European socialist and social democratic parties were due to adopt a "manifesto" for next year's European Parliament elections which she said "will propose a new model to liberalism where the economy has greater priority than finances."

"All the stakes in the next European elections will be to convince Europeans that Europe...is also the hope of a new model," she added.

Aubry, who was elected the head of France's Socialists last week, urged European socialists to "talk of a new model in the face of liberalism" and "not content themselves with a few measures to regulate financial markets."

The daughter of former European Commission head Jacques Delors, she has vowed to keep the party "solidly anchored on the left."

A shift to the centre would alienate traditional voters at a time when the financial crisis has revived leftist state-driven economics, she said after she was elected.

Aubry is a traditional leftist who is best known as the woman who gave France the 35-hour working week when she served as labour minister.

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