Ségolène Royal sought to revive her flagging campaign for the French presidency today by reembracing her Socialist party and casting herself as a modernising champion of the state and the suffering lower paid.

As a Paris crowd of 15,000 chanted "Ségolène Président", Ms Royal, 53, promised higher wages and pensions, a stronger welfare state and more protection against foreign competition as she set out her long-awaited manifesto for the April election.

"I can offer you something more than a manifesto -- a pact of honor, a presidential pact that I propose to everyone, the most vulnerable and the strong, those who have been our supporters all along and those who have not, because France needs all its people," Ms Royal said.

She pitched her two-hour speech in a new statewoman's tone as she sought to rekindle the excitement that has faded since the Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right candidate, seized the spotlight last month with a more dynamic campaign. Ms Royal is trying to keep her distinctive cross-party appeal while consolidating support on the left, especially among public sector workers and the lower-paid.

While the crowd applauded a long catalogue of policy proposals, Ms Royal stirred fervour when she reverted to her lyrical rhetoric and spoke as a mother who understands the troubles of ordinary families. "For every child born here, I want to accomplish what I wanted for my own children," said the one-time schools and family affairs Minister.

In her appearance at Villepinte, near Charles de Gaulle airport, Ms Royal reached out to the party from which she had distanced herself in her campaign for the nomination. The most striking symbol of this was her bright red jacket and skirt -- the Socialist colour -- rather than the radiant white suits that have been her trademark. She also used a red backdrop instead of the sky blue of her highly personal early campaign. She announced a new slogan: "A fairer France will be stronger France" instead of the old "progress for all and respect for each".

The party leadership, including François Hollande, its chief and her domestic partner, and her former rivals for the candidacy, applauded from front as Ms Royal defined herself as heir to France's leftwing tradition as represented by the late François Mitterrand, the last Socialist president and her first boss.

Emulating Mitterrand's victorious 1981 campaign, Ms Royal listed 100 proposals for reform. Her team gleaned these from 6,000 town meetings that they staged around the country since last November. They included promises to boost small pensions by 5 per cent, to consolidate the 35-hour maximum working week, to lift the minimum wage to 1,500 euros from 1,254 euros. She also proposed tax breaks to encourage trade union membership. She revived earlier proposals to establish military-style training camp for young offenders and "citizen juries" to evaluate the work of central and local Government. Justice had to be swifter and firmer among young delinquents, she said.

These ideas, which drew fire from the left as populist, reflect Ms Royal's belief that France needs greater discipline and sense of individual responsibility. On schools, she was applauded once again aired the slogan that she borrowed from Tony Blair's 1997 campaign: "Education, education, education."

Ms Royal stressed the need for France to bring down its swelling national debt, but made no attempt to explain how she would finance the generous new schemes that she proposed.

She also sought to allay doubts about her qualifications on foreign policy by setting out an agenda for new French leadership in Europe and the world. Responding to deep anxiety in France over globalisation, she said called for new rules to ensure "fair competition" in international and European trade. "Europe cannot just be a free trade zone appended to Nato," she said. "Europe must not abandon itself to the sole doctrine of competition." This meant agreement among all EU states on taxation. She also called for a revamp of the Common Agriculture Policy, not to dismantle it, but to strengthen its support of smaller farmers and the environment. She offered no change in approach to the United States, saying that France would stand up to Washington whenever it deemed that it was abusing its power, as it did in Iraq.

Ms Royal appeared to have reignited the confidence of her party after a month of gaffes and blunders but her opponents lambasted her for reverting to antique Socialist doctrines. Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far right National Front, said that she had merely "preached to her constituency of civil servants and public sector workers without explaining where the money will come from".

Mr Sarkozy, leader of the Union for a Popular Maojrity, tried to upstage Ms Royal with his own, smaller, Paris rally this morning. He charged her with retreating into a leftwing ghetto. "I want to speak to the French, all the French," he said. "For me, they are all equal in rights and duties. That is the difference."

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