SÉGOLÈNE ROYAL, the darling of the French opinion polls, will face an unprecedented barrage of attacks from her Socialist “comrades” today as male rivals strive to prevent her nomination as the party’s presidential candidate.

Her challengers, known as the elephants, will use the party’s summer conference to make a last-ditch effort to prevent her consigning them to the political graveyard.

Mme Royal, 52, who the polls indicate is the only Socialist capable of defeating Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, next year, will be the target of a concerted campaign that is splitting the movement.

In a foretaste of what is likely to be a vitriolic three-day meeting in La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast, she has already been subjected to criticism, scorn and sexist sneering over the past seven days — all from her own side. “A beauty contest is not what the French want,” Laurent Fabius, 60, the former Socialist Prime Minister, said — implying that Mme Royal had nothing but her looks to offer the electorate.

The sniping is also being directed at the father of Mme Royal’s four children, François Hollande, who is the Socialist Party leader and himself an outsider for the presidency next spring. The elephants suspect him of preparing the ground for his partner before pulling out of the race at the last moment. However, M Hollande said yesterday that he remained in the running, holding out the prospect of a family battle for France’s highest office.

Asked whether he backed the woman with whom he has lived since they met as students, he replied: “It’s not for me to encourage or support anyone. Like a lot of other people, I note that she counts as far as French are concerned.”

M Hollande also called on his “comrades” to unite in La Rochelle — although few commentators expected his words to be heeded as the race to succeed President Chirac gets under way in earnest.

Among the heavyweight Socialists seeking to be nominated as presidential candidate in a vote by party members in November are Jack Lang, 66, the former Culture Minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 57, the former Finance Minister, and M Fabius. Lionel Jospin, 69, a former Prime Minister, says he will also throw his hat into the ring “if there is a need for me”. Mme Royal, a former Schools Minister and the first woman to emerge as a serious presidential contender, has capitalised on a national yearning for change to rise from relative obscurity in little over 12 months. Seen as a break with the gloom-ridden Chirac years, she is now a clear favourite. According to one opinion poll this week, 54 per cent of French voters want to see her as the Socialist candidate. M Strauss-Kahn, her nearest rival, was 31 points behind.

Another poll gave her 34 per cent of the votes in the first round of the presidential election, with M Sarkozy on 30 per cent. The same poll found that if M Fabius stood as the Socialist candidate the party’s vote would collapse to 12 per cent, while M Sarkozy would get 38 per cent.

The bitterness provoked by similar poll findings was evident when François Rebsamen, M Hollande’s deputy, called on Mme Royal’s rival to step aside for her. M Lang denounced a “fatwa” and said: “We are no lapdogs who can be ordered back into their kennels at the blow of a whistle.”

Instead, the elephants are trying to stand their ground and portray Mme Royal as a lightweight, incapable of running the country at a time of deep malaise. She has been attacked for failing to detail her policies, criticism that intensified this week when she pulled out of a debate with young Socialists. A keynote speech last week, when she claimed to be the heir to François Mitterrand , the late President, was denounced as “hollow” by Jean-Luc Mélanchon, an aide to M Fabius.

With Mme Royal positioning herself as a pragmatist, capable of borrowing from Tony Blair, the elephants have been moving to the Left. They hope to win the backing of Socialist Party members through radical policies.

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