French Socialist Using Web to Win Over Voters

French Socialist Party deputy Segolene Royal (center) and former minister Yvette Roudy (right) vote during the Socialist Party National convention meeting at La Mutualite in Paris on July 1, 2006. (Benoit Tessier - Reuters)

But many of her critics have been silenced by polls showing that French voters overwhelmingly support her tough stance on law and order and her candidacy. Three polls last month placed her ahead of the presumed presidential front-runner, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy of the ruling UMP. A July 19 poll published by the French daily Le Monde showed her three percentage points behind Sarkozy. Even so, her ratings did not decline; Sarkozy's increased slightly. A survey of Socialist sympathizers by Liberation newspaper found her 40 percent ahead of all other probable Socialist candidates.

In a less scientific but equally attention-grabbing survey, readers ranked Royal the sixth-sexiest woman in the world, ahead of such sirens as Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Elizabeth Hurley and Penelope Cruz, in last month's edition of France's FHM magazine. She reportedly has undergone what some political analysts refer to as a Hillary Clinton-style makeover, acquiring a flashier wardrobe, straighter teeth and a deeper voice.

Eric Travert, 46, manager of a newspaper stand in Paris, said both he and his wife would vote for Royal. "People need to believe that the current crisis may end -- they need to dream and forget about the past 10 years," he said. "We need more humanity in this country, and it's time to see other people than the 'old guard.' " He complained that "all the Socialist candidates, apart from Segolene, have been around for 30 years."

Royal and her aides declined to be interviewed for this story.

The French media are also swooning, giving Royal diva status by referring to her simply by her first name.

"There is about her a delicious perfume of right-wing conservatism with a progressive project," cooed Paris Match.

"Tougher than Sarkozy," intoned the right-wing Le Figaro.

Royal, who was born in 1953 in Senegal, then a French colony, and raised in a conservative military family, is a three-time cabinet minister (environment, education, and family and children), a member of Parliament for 13 years and the author of four books. She has a degree in economics from Paris's Institute of Political Sciences, also known as Sciences Po, and is a graduate of France's National School of Administration, the breeding ground for the country's governing elites.

Despite those accomplishments, Royal is having trouble shaking a perception among many analysts and politicians that she is a media creation, and that her campaign is mostly hype and Internet buzz, with little substance.

Her use of the Internet sets her apart from some UMP leaders, such as Chirac, who 10 years ago stood transfixed before a computer mouse and asked, "What's that?" The incident was ridiculed as an example of French backwardness. And Sarkozy has tried to make an asset of the fact that he has no computer in his office, explaining to an interviewer that he doesn't have time for one.

Nonetheless, many analysts here say the UMP is ahead of the Socialists in exploiting the Internet. The party has an Internet newsletter with 135,000 subscribers and is spending about $38,000 a month to purchase key words in search engines such as Google and Yahoo, according to Malhuret, the party's top Internet person.

Thierry Vedel, a political scientist and Internet expert at Sciences Po, compared Sarkozy to President Bush in 2004, saying that because he had his party's nomination virtually locked up, Sarkozy had no need for an interactive Internet site like Royal's.

"Sarkozy is very controversial and very popular, and a blog would make no sense -- it would be blocked right away by thousands of comments, many of them negative," he said. The same is true of the runner-up from 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far-right National Front party, "who is using the Internet to distribute and pulverize people with materials in a top-down way, without any interactivity."

"But Royal is much weaker in her party, and she needed her blog to create a network within the Socialist Party," Vedel said.

The comparisons to Dean are not always flattering. After creating a media storm and surging ahead in the polls for the Democratic nomination, Dean self-imploded and ended up winning not a single state's primary election. Royal's contribution to the party's membership drive, however, should give her a strong base of support and a leg up over other potential candidates in the primary race, analysts said. And she is benefiting from massive media publicity.

During next year's presidential race, roughly 65 percent of the French population is likely to have access to the Internet, about the same level as in the United States during the 2004 campaign, according to the UMP's Malhuret.

But while the Internet is a great marketing tool, he said, its impact on the political process is unknown. "Little by little the Internet is playing a more important role, but you can't say whether it changes 1 or 2 percent of the vote," Malhuret said. "And since you don't know, you can't ignore it."

Researcher Corinne Gavard contributed to this report.