"My opinion is that of the French people". With this glib avoidance of an opinion on whether Turkey should be allowed to join the European Union Ms Ségolène Royal hid behind the legislative commitment to hold a referendum on the subject whenever it comes up for decision.
Currently she is the favourite to secure the Socialist Party nomination. At her press conference on European policy yesterday she was more substantive on restoring aid to the Palestinians, renewable energy and social policy. But her policies on institutional change remain vague compared to those put forward by her main right-wing protagonist, interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy.
The Socialists are bitterly divided on who should be their candidate, but less so on what their European policy should be. Last year's referendum on the EU constitutional treaty was rejected by the French electorate in good part because most left-wing voters opposed it. This makes the European issue salient in next year's presidential election. So far Mr Sarkozy has made the running in the preliminary campaigning, notably, in a speech last month in Brussels, proposing a mini-treaty in place of the rejected text to implement several of its reforms ahead of a new constitutional convention after the European election in 2009.
Ms Royal agrees with him that the same text cannot be put to French voters again and that it must be renegotiated; but she wants that process to start during France's EU presidency from July 2008. She says the European ideal cannot be left to liberal free marketeers, who would misuse it.
This echoes the views of those who voted against the treaty, although she supported it. She insists on an ambitious programme of renewable energy at European level, on pan-European transport networks, ecological sustainability and the maintenance of social protection, not a competitive levelling down of standards.
She was reluctant to declaim policy prematurely on how Europe should respond to Islamic militancy, although this debate energises French hostility to Turkish EU membership. She insisted that Turkey must acknowledge there was a genocide of Armenians during the first World War, an issue being pushed hard by her party under the influence of a strong Armenian diaspora in France.
These French debates on European policy should be followed closely during the presidential election campaign. The visions on offer differ substantially and the victor will affect other EU member states in the long term.