Royal keeps everyone guessing in the battle to lead France's Socialist party

It's surely not as immediately gripping as the recent US election and Barack Obama's history-making win, but once again there's a twist in political events here in France as Séglolène Royal takes perhaps another (distant) step towards becoming the first female elected head of State of a G8 country.

On Sunday the French Socialists are expected to endorse both a political programme and a new leader when party activists gather in the northern city of Rheims, and Royal has not counted herself out of the running.

The formal vote among the party's 233,000 card-carrying members will not take place until next Thursday (November 20) but the weekend's conference should settle the ongoing battle by picking just one candidate for the post.

On Wednesday evening Royal appeared live on French television during the TF1's prime time news broadcast and said that she "would like" to be the Socialist party's next leader.

It wasn't exactly Royal excitedly throwing her hat into the ring and declaring her intention to run in the race to elect a new leader (or chairman/woman) but it was the next best thing.

And her appearance has kept everyone guessing about the likely outcome, whether she'll be able to reach an agreement with other pretenders to the post to back her, or the possible appearance of a compromise candidate behind whom the party can rally as it tries yet again to overcome internal bickering and refocus on being in its own words "an effective opposition".

Tuning in last night viewers were probably expecting Royal to give a clear "yes" or "no" as to whether she would be standing in this weekend's election. She didn't - but she also didn't rule anything out.

"Party members have already voted and given a legitimacy to the programme I put forward," she said.

"And I'll say quite frankly that 'yes' I would like to be the leader. But plenty of people have said that I'm not a woman of who fits comfortably into the party apparatus, and that's true in the sense that I prefer direct contact with the people than being ruled by the party machine," she admitted.

"The thing I would like to do is have the party move forward with the team I've assembled, but above all I would like be able to unite the party," Royal continued.

"I've met Bertrand (Delanoë) and Martine (Aubry) and others to listen to what they have to say, because the party members haven't voted to count anyone out of the running but for us to put our collective talents together to unite the party."

You might remember that Royal was the party's candidate in last year's presidential election.

In losing to Nicolas Sarkozy she garnered almost 47 per cent or over 16 million votes, overcoming deep divisions within the party, which re-emerged after the campaign as the internal bickering and "blame" for yet another electoral loss dominated.

After her defeat, Royal took time to lick her wounds, metaphorically speaking, rebuild her base of support and then launched upon a campaign for the leadership of the party - when her former partner of more than 20 years, François Hollande, announced that he would be standing down.

But her chances of making headway seemed doomed when her main rival for the post and current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, won the backing of many of the party's powerful old guard (or so-called elephants) when he declared that he was up for the job.

His supporters included Hollande and a former Socialist prime minister and presidential candidate, Lionel Jospin.

Another potential contender - Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been shipped off by Sarkozy to become head of the International Monetary Fund, and while Royal's popularity "waned", Martine Aubry, daughter of the former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors, and architect of the 35-hour working week here in France, emerged as the most likely challenger to Delanoë.

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By the summer of this year surveys showed that what had orignally appeared a two horse race between Delanoë and Royal had in fact become a likely win for Delanoë, with even Aubry outdistancing Royal in the polls.

The most likely outcome as far as most political commentators were concerned was Delanoë as the party's next leader, and so it seemed going into last week when party activists chose whose "vision" for the future they liked most.

It was the first step in the process that should end with the endorsement of a programme and a new leader on Sunday, and the formal vote next Thursday.

To everyone's surprise, Royal's programme came in first - a narrow win, but a win nonetheless - and it put her very much back in the driving seat.

Would she now, as she had previously promised to do if her proposals won the day, seek to become the party's next leader and, as she had always maintained, use the position as a platform for that presiential bid in 2012?

Apparently she would stand according to the much respected national daily Le Monde, at the beginning of this week.

Royal remained silent, and even when she appeared on television last night the odds were fairly stacked in favour of here making that announcement.

Once again though she seems to have learnt from past mistakes and is playing the game to her advantage. Royal knows she holds the balance of power - so-to-speak. None of the programmes of the four main contenders (there is also Benoît Hamon) has enough support to be the outright winner, and needs the backing of one of the other camps.

Of course a compromise candidate whose programme is a combination of two or more existing ones might still appear behind whom the party faithful could rally and there's likely to be even more behind the scenes last-minute haggling.

All right so the next presidential election here isn't due until 2012 (should be a busy year with presidential elections scheduled in both France and the US, and the Olympics hitting London) and Royal narrowly missed out on making history last year when she lost to Sarkozy.

But it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that she could still become the first elected female head of state of a G8 country, and perhaps for that alone it's worth the "heads up" - to use the appropriate Internet vernacular.

There'll be an update for anyone out there who's still interested and still awake after wading through this as to whether on Sunday, the conference actually endorses one candidate and one programme.