“My most beautiful story IS YOU.”

No not the latest historical romance from Mills and Boon, but the title of the long-awaited oeuvre from the former Socialist presidential candidate, Segolene Royal.

The blurb for the launch of “Ma plus belle histoire, c’est vous” promises readers a mix of tears and laughter, pages packed from start to finish with humour and plenty of emotion.

Grappling to find a news angle last week one respected Internet site, clearly supplied with a teaser from the author herself, claimed that Royal was in fact about to dish some real dirt. The book, the site maintained, reveals that during a secret meeting Royal had offered the post of prime minister to the already beaten centre-right presidential candidate, François Bayrou. Their “assignation” apparently took place before her head-to-head debate with Nicolas Sarkozy just days before the final vote.

Ah but remember this is the wonderful world of often unsubstantiated and usually contradictory journalism and politics. So it’s hardly a surprise that a similar speculative story as to what was actually in the book, appeared on another even more respected news site with a slightly different angle.

The offer had indeed been made Bayrou is reported to have responded, but never accepted as there was no way he could have agreed to it believing, as he did, that Royal could not win. And of course the two had never met in private.

Ho hum lovely to see supposition and rumour shedding light on what we shall all be able to find our for ourselves on Tuesday.

So no story then? Well not quite. It’s rather an indication that even though journalists have perhaps been scratching around trying to throw some titbits out to the hungry masses, Royal has been playing her cards very close to her chest and not given them a chance spoil her comeback.

And that’s the real story - she’s back – and she’s back in charge of her own destiny.

She has shaken off the shackles of the Socialist Party’s old-timers – the so-called elephants – to whom she had been virtually manacled in the closing stages of electoral campaigning. Real emancipation at last, as evidenced by the few remarks she has made in recent months that her campaign had suffered because she had been forced to accept the impracticable sacred-cow policies of the 35-hour working week and a minimum wage of €1,500 euros a month.

The book, according to Royal’s own official website, is her attempt to set the record straight in so far as it details the months leading up to her failed attempt to beat Sarkozy in May.

The (centre-right) political weekly “Le Point” says the writing of the book was itself cathartic for the former candidate - not a time to fire salvoes at critics, but more a way of drawing that proverbial line under the past.

While Lionel Jospin, a fellow failed presidential candidate and one time Socialist prime minister, took aim at what he termed Royal’s incompetence in his own version of events a few months ago, she is said to have spent time taking stock and learning from her mistakes.

Of course the pre-Christmas timing of the book’s release could not be better planned and will probably help boost interest and sales. It also clearly hauls Royal back to centre stage after months of relative silence.

She has maintained a discreet distance from the political infighting within the Socialist party but still commands healthy support and has preserved close contact with some very influential
party activists

Her revamped inner circle of advisors is in part an answer to her own admission that Sarkozy had a veritable war machine in place during the presidential election campaign. And since she booted her former partner and likely competitor for the leadership of the party (for the presidential nomination in 2012), François Hollande out of their apartment, she has also installed herself in new offices away from the party’s headquarters.

And with local elections just a few months away, Royal is busy painting the town Red – quite literally – making regular appearances at the theatre, concerts and dance performances

She has rediscovered her professional and private life – rising beyond what must be bitter lessons of being called the “mother the country never needed” or the misogynist mocking of former colleagues as being a woman who castrated men.

But Royal has worryingly kept that disturbing staccato style of saying something one day, and then almost appearing to backtrack on it the next. She initially gave her support for example to the government’s policy for changes in the funding and administration of universities and followed it a couple of days later with the qualification that she wasn’t backing reform with her eyes closed.

While “Ma plus belle histoire, c’est vous” might not send too many pulses racing or pick up accolades for literary distinction, it is important because it marks the return to frontline politics of a presidential candidate who had the backing of 17 million voters at the polls.

And in the almost seven months of a hyperactive president firing on all fronts simultaneously, the voice so far of any reasoned opposition has been all but stifled. Perhaps French democracy will decide that it needs Segolene Royal after all.