Royal's home turf - a snapshot of a future France?

Raffarin has criticized Royal for not introducing large-scale projects despite raising taxes, but Fountaine said she had boosted regional help for young entrepreneurs, with grants that helped create some 3,000 firms and 5,000 jobs.

Royal has also made some regional aid subject to firms promising to act in an environmentally sound fashion, not to lay off employees and not to move production abroad.

Laurent Guyon, who runs a company producing wood structures to build homes, said he had had no difficulty signing the commitment: the regional grant had helped him hire an extra 20 people for his business north of Angouleme.

"I think it's a good measure of give and take," he said.

"The region wants to get something back. It's an intelligent way of handling aid."

Environmentalists in the region have praised her commitment to reducing emissions, as well as a project to plant hundreds of thousands of trees and grants to boost ecological investment.

But both on national and regional level, her critics say the youthful Royal is drawn to image-grabbing initiatives.

Royal raised eyebrows in her region when she distributed thousands of slippers to boarding schools to help an ailing slipper factory -- a plan not well-received by all students.

"Luckily they didn't come in my size," the tall student Bianucci in Angouleme said.

"What a media coup. The last thing we need are slippers."