French challenger

A fascinating clash of policies and personalities is under way in France as its major political parties prepare to choose their…

A fascinating clash of policies and personalities is under way in France as its major political parties prepare to choose their presidential candidates for next year.

This week the focus is on the leading Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal. She has challenged some of her party's taboos by questioning the efficacy of the 35-hour week and advocating that young suburban troublemakers do military service. She is distinctive in several ways, compared to her party rivals. Most important, she is an elegant woman and a mother of four children in what remains a remarkably male-dominated political system. She has combined those roles with a capable advisory and ministerial career and strong performance in her regional stronghold of Poitou-Charente. Her strategy is to appeal to and win support from public opinion before the party chooses its candidate - and on terms chosen by her rather than party orthodoxy.

So far it has paid off. She has concentrated on issues such as social protection, the return of moral values, good education, public security in schools and on the street, employment protection and the importance to family stability of having a job rather than on high political issues of economics and foreign policy. In so doing she has aimed at the centre ground of public opinion and struck a chord. There are clear echoes of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton in this strategy, and Ms Royal has not been afraid to point them out, despite the raised eyebrows these references provoke on her left. She is admired by voters for thinking outside established policy boxes and for a steely determination to set her own agenda. Opinion polling, response to her website and growing membership of her party all point to her popularity.

Ms Royal's sharp response to young urban trouble-makers did not go down well with her party's leaders but has clear public support. It is seen as a challenge to the leading Gaullist candidate, interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has a reputation for toughness on public order issues. The comparison between them is worth making in other respects, substantively and in terms of style. Both argue, for example, that a new formula must be found to combine social security with labour market flexibility. Both have avoided association with successive scandals.

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Above all, both politicians are recognised as radicals willing to break out of party moulds and mindsets and respond to a public demand for change. Ms Royal faces a formidable foe if the election pits them against one another next year. Increasingly, she looks up to the challenge.