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Woman leader in French race

Vaiju Naravane

Presidential candidate combines family values with civic duty

SOARING POPULARITY: French socialist leader Segolene Royal addresses a public meeting in Vitrolles, southern France, on Friday. — PHOTO: AFP

Paris: F rench Socialist Party frontrunner Segolene Royal announced on Friday that she would be a candidate for her party's nomination to the next presidential election in France scheduled to be held in April 2007.

The 53-year old Member of Parliament, who was a junior Minister under President Francois Mitterrand, chose the southern municipality of Vitrolles — won and subsequently bankrupted by the extreme Right-wing National Front — to announce her candidacy.

Confident but tense

Ms. Royal, who was carefully made-up for the occasion, appeared confident but tense. "The Madonna of the polls", "Sexy Sego" or "the royal Royal" as she has been dubbed by the press is the outright leader among socialist hopefuls.

The latest poll indicates that 54 per cent of socialist sympathisers would vote for her as against 12 per cent for her chief rival Dominique Strauss Kahn and 11 per cent for former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius. This is the first time the party is holding an American-style primary to choose its presidential candidate. The final date for announcing candidacies is October 4.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Strauss-Kahn too announced that he would be a candidate. Party general secretary Francois Hollande, who is also Ms. Royal's companion and father of their four children, said he would not be in the running. A day earlier, former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin had also announced his decision to withdraw from the race with a parting shot saying he would not "vote for one particular candidate, a female one."

Ms. Royal is now facing three other Socialist presidential hopefuls although Mr. Fabius and Jack Lang have yet to formally announce their candidacies.

" I accept taking on this mission for the benefit of France and the trials that go with it — even as I want to protect my family — and so I present myself for the vote of the socialists, and then I hope for the judgement of the French people in winning, on merit, their confidence in April 2007," she said to wild applause.

She pledged to "revive the country" and "give it every opportunity".

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