Poll Leader Joins Heavyweight Field In Socialist Party
By Laure Bretton
Reuters
Saturday, September 30, 2006
VITROLLES, France, Sept. 29 -- Segolene Royal confirmed Friday that she wants to become the Socialist candidate in the 2007 French presidential election, officially entering a race against a string of party heavyweights.
Royal, 53, heads opinion polls of voters to lead the Socialist Party into the election, but it is up to its 200,000 members to select the candidate in November, with four or five candidates likely to compete for the nomination.
"Yes, I agree to take on this mission of conquest for France and the challenges coming with it," Royal said in a campaign speech in the southern town of Vitrolles, getting loud applause.
Her comments came shortly after former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn said he would run. Ex-prime minister Laurent Fabius and former culture minister Jack Lang are to announce their candidacies before an Oct. 3 deadline.
Party leader Francois Hollande, who lives with Royal, has not ruled out running.
Another potential candidate, former prime minister Lionel Jospin, retreated from the fray Thursday after failing to rally many supporters.
Tensions have risen within the Socialist camp over who will represent it in the election, leading to warnings that the party might tear itself apart before the 2007 ballot. Some supporters of Jospin, a political veteran, believed he was the only person capable of halting Royal, whom they see as a political lightweight, and made clear that they were in no mood for reconciliation now that their champion has quit.
"She is capable neither of winning the election nor of being president of the republic," former education minister Claude Allegre told French radio on Friday. Royal's camp accused Jospin's ally of unleashing a "blast of hate" in their direction.
Opinion polls say that Royal is not only the clear favorite on the left, but also the only opponent capable of beating the front-runner in the ruling Union for a Popular Movement, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
But Royal has upset some party members by questioning the Socialist's touchstone 35-hour workweek, and with her tough proposals on cutting youth crime. Some rivals say she lacks clear ideas and merely seeks to cash in on her good looks.
There has been only one Socialist president of France in modern times, Francois Mitterrand, who governed from 1981 to 1995.
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