Ségolãne Royal brought Socialist Party heavyweights into her campaign team yesterday as she sought to lay to rest criticism that her bid for the French presidency was being undermined by amateurism.

Ms Royal, 53, announced the appointment of Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the two rivals she defeated in the Socialist primary, to a “strategic council” to advise her.

Although both men poured scorn on Ms Royal when she announced her candidacy, and have sulked since she was chosen, they are seen as big-hitters capable of inflicting damage on the centre-right candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy. Last night Ms Royal announced that Lionel Jospin, the former Socialist Prime Minister, was also joining her team.

Their appointment shored up a campaign that had been controlled largely by the leftwinger’s friends, notably the former Trotskyist Sophie Bouchet-Petersen and the advertising executive Natalie Rastoin.

Ms Royal’s critics say that the likes of Mrs Bouchet-Petersen, 57, and Mrs Rastoin, 46, for all their goodwill, lack the clout or experience to run a presidential election campaign.

In another sign that the party apparatus was taking power, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, the Socialists’ spokesman, said that the Socialist headquarters would become the “nerve centre” of the campaign.

He appeared to signal a move away from a strategy in which the strings were pulled by Ms Royal’s campaign headquarters in Boulevard Saint-Germain — an office dubbed the Forbidden City by Socialist officials who feel sidelined.

“Everyone’s on the bridge. It’s a time of general mobilisation,” Mr Cambadélis said, adding that other senior Socialists would be included in the 20-strong strategic council. He said that Ms Royal was adopting the tactics that had helped her Socialist mentor, François Mitterrand, to the presidency in 1981.

The change was not so much a policy overhaul as a recognition that the “participative democracy” championed by the Socialist candidate had demolished party discipline.

But the confusion that has beset Ms Royal’s team remained evident yesterday as her advisers talked down a reorganisation that she had talked up on Sunday. One described it as a mere adjustment that would be confirmed by a written statement last night or today

The revamp came with Ms Royal’s ratings on the rise after a televised debate, though she still trails Mr Sarkozy by two to four percentage points.

Read Charles Bremner on the Royal relaunch

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