Facing Attacks, Presidential Candidate Wants To Be France’s First Female Leader
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
PARIS — The socialist politician hoping to become France’s first female president faced a wave of attacks by party rivals yesterday as they sought to curb her success as the darling of leftist voters.
Leading French socialists seized on Segolene Royal’s performance on the Middle East crisis to promote their “anyone but Segolene” cause.
A former prime minister, Laurent Fabius, and a former culture minister, Jack Lang, mocked the idea floated by Ms. Royal, 52, that international figures, such as President Clinton, should intervene in the conflict.
Mr. Fabius said in a world of terror, experience was “not necessarily a defect.”
A potential candidate for the Elysee along with Ms. Royal and Mr. Fabius, Mr. Lang said: “Popularity and the capacity to create dynamics are criteria, but experience, competence, and international moral authority count, too.”
Even the socialists’ general secretary and father of Ms. Royal’s four children, Francois Hollande, has voiced misgivings about some of her pronouncements, especially her support for tough measures on crime.
Mr. Hollande, too, may seek the party’s nomination when a presidential candidate is chosen in November.
