Royal makes surprising appeal in race to elect new French Socialist leader

The battle to find a new leader of the French Socialist party took an unexpected twist on Monday evening, when one of the candidates, Ségolène Royal, called on all potential contenders to put aside any ambitions they had for the position and instead concentrate on policy issues.

Speaking on prime time news on French television Royal said the country was in need of a credible and united opposition to the current government's policies.

"You would have to be both blind and deaf not to realise that disillusionment is increasing among the French," she said.

"Things are not going well in France and where are the Socialists?", she asked.

"What are we doing? We're having a battle for different positions within the party.

"I would like to put a stop to this slow but sure descent of the party and the level of debate," she added.

"And I propose that everyone 'shelves' questions of their candidature at the Congress (in November) or worse for the presidential nomination because there are still several years until that happens."

Now this might seem a somewhat surprising move by Royal - as it is she who has always linked both leadership of the party with a future presidential bid.

Indeed after her defeat to Nicolas Sarkozy in last year's election - she was the party's nominated candidate - Royal made it clear that she had almost 47 per cent of the electorate behind her and would make the natural successor to her former partner François Hollande as leader of the party.

He's stepping down after 11 years in the job, and at the party's congress in November activists will get to choose a replacement.

Royal has also in the past maintained that the leader of the party would make the most obvious choice as the candidate for a presidential bid in 2012.

To some then - especially her critics, and there are plenty of them both within the party and outside - she seems to have done something of a U-turn.

And even her declaration or call doesn't exactly appear to be lacking in doublespeak, which the country's media has been quick to point out.

How, many wonder, can she request "pretenders" to Hollande's post put aside their differences for the moment and not appear to be campaigning for the leadership race, but at the same time not rule herself out completely?

Well that's all part of her strategy, it has been suggested, in trying to appeal to the grass roots of the party. After all, it's the members, and not the country as a whole, who will be deciding the party's future leader.

Royal has seen her popularity slip over the past couple of months, and is well behind the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, and even Martine Aubry, the mayor of Lille, according to the most recent opinion polls.

By appealing directly to the grass roots membership of the party and presenting herself as "being above the fray" Royal is perhaps hoping instead that she will be seen the symbol of unity in a party that has been divided by internal bickering for several years.

In spite of the head scratching her comments may have created, she's not being as inconsistent as might at first appear. In May, Royal said that she would be a candidate to succeed Hollande, "If party activists showed they also supported the proposals we are putting forward."

And that's exactly what she repeated on Monday - first the party would vote on a number of motions put before Congress (on November 6) and based on those results she would decide whether to stand for the leadership.

The (apparent change in) strategy will probably not win her many friends among the party's old guard, but there again Royal has never been one to run shy of a battle with them.

But if she wanted a sign that her call would probably fall on deaf ears, Royal only had to wait 24 hours as Hollande threw his backing behind Delanoë after the two men met on Tuesday evening.