AN ambitious young Frenchwoman whose fight against trade unions has earned her the nickname Mademoiselle Thatcher is to stand for parliament at the start of a political career which she hopes will revolutionise France.

If elected next year, Sabine Herold, the darling of the French right, will become the country’s youngest MP so far at the age of 25.

In March, Herold helped to launch Liberal Alternative, a political party that already has representatives in 150 French towns and cities. She hopes that it will soon have several MPs.

“People are hungry for change,” she said in an interview last week. “But none of the traditional parties on the left or the right offers any prospect for a break with the past. We want to create a new generation of politicians to be able to change France.”

She certainly does not lack confidence. As a 21-year-old student Herold was catapulted into the limelight after leading a rally against the unions which had paralysed the country in 2003 in one of its many bouts of discontent.

“I like what Margaret Thatcher did in Britain,” she acknowledged, noting that France’s unions still enjoy the disruptive power that has not been seen in Britain for more than two decades. “The unions in this country should be made more accountable. They are not even obliged to reveal the source of their funding.”

In her view, neither of the main candidates in next year’s presidential election will be able to shake France out of its stagnation and energise its outmoded economy.

No matter how much Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative interior minister and most likely candidate for the centre-right, promises a “rupture” with the past, he has a strong dirigiste streak, complained Herold, referring to the French tradition of big intrusive government.

On the left, Ségolène Royal, star of the opinion polls, might find it hard to impose some of her policies without alienating her Socialist party. “It is not even certain that they will anoint her as their candidate,” said Herold, referring to the outrage of Socialist militants at Royal’s recent recommendation of boot camps for unruly youths.

Herold, the daughter of schoolteachers from Lille, strongly believes that her free market party will come to dominate French politics. “In France, 30 is the average number of years most of the politicians have been on the scene,” she said. “In our party, it is the average age of the leaders.”

With her good looks and quick wit she will pose a credible challenge to Françoise de Panafieu, the veteran conservative MP whom Herold wants to evict from her seat in the 17th arrondissement of Paris in legislative elections next June.

Herold says that her party will also nominate a candidate for the presidential ballot next May, but it will not be her. “I think I am still a bit young for that,” she said.

She is about to start a job in a small venture capital firm after graduating last week from a Paris business school. “Some of our politicians have never really done anything in the real world. I want to know what business is.”

She already has more experience of the outside world than many politicians. Her studies involved a year of theology at Birmingham University.

At the exclusive Sciences Po, the familiar name for the political sciences school in Paris, she met Edouard Fillias, who became her mentor. Under his guidance she began devouring political texts by liberal thinkers; when he set up Liberal Alternative she happily took on the role of spokeswoman.

The party is quickly gathering supporters and has set up fundraising committees from London to New York, hoping to profit from expat French who have been exposed to Anglo-Saxon economics.

“In 10 years I am sure we will have ministers in the government,” said Herold. “And in 40 years, who knows? We will at least be one of the main parties, perhaps even having put a president into the Elysée Palace. Of that I am sure.”

So if Royal fails to become France’s first female president, that title may fall to Herold.

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