France:France's defeated presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal, said yesterday she would not stand for re-election in next month's parliamentary ballot.
The decision could complicate her efforts to stamp her authority on the Socialist Party, which faces internal strife following its third consecutive loss in a presidential election.
Ms Royal is president of France's western Poitou-Charentes region and she made a point during the election campaign of saying politicians should only hold one elected office. Ms Royal said she had decided to stick to her principles and would renounce standing for re-election in her Deux-Sèvres constituency.
The Socialist Party is expected to lose the parliamentary election, with polls saying voters will give president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy a strong majority.
An opinion poll published yesterday showed 40 per cent of respondents believed Ms Royal should lead the party campaign for the legislative vote. The next highest score was 28 per cent for former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, seen as the most moderate of the Socialist heavyweights.
"The French have understood that [the party] has distanced itself from reality. They want a left that is real, efficient and concrete, not tied by an ideology that doles out yesterday's solutions," Mr Strauss-Kahn said in a speech on Thursday.
- (Reuters)