A bitter feud between Ségolène Royal and her former partner, the Socialist party leader François Hollande, is dominating the party’s summer congress this weekend.

The acrimony came to a head when Mr Hollande said that he planned to fight the mother of his four children for the party’s next presidential candidacy after her failed bid in May.

Ms Royal, whose 25-year domestic partnership with Mr Hollande came to an end after her defeat by Nicolas Sarkozy, has made it clear that she wants to wrest control of the party from Mr Hollande.

As the former first couple fought their turf war, many senior Socialists stayed away from the gathering at the Atlantic port of La Rochelle in disgust.

Ms Royal opened the gathering under heavy fire for her defeat as presidential candidate. “I am here to help my party change and become attractive again. I want the return of imagination,” she said.

The woman who was the darling of her party and of France this time last year holds no post in the leadership but she wants to take over the party after Mr Hollande steps down in 12 months. She opened the conference in her role as President of the Poitou-Charentes region, which includes La Rochelle.

Younger rivals were surprised on Thursday when Mr Hollande, 53, who is seen as a spent force after a decade of leadership, announced plans to seek the party’s presidential nomination in 2010.

The prospect of the party being held hostage to the Royal-Hollande feud appalled senior Socialists, many of whom blame both for the party’s fall to its lowest ebb since the late Francois Mitterrand took it over in the mid1970s. “A plague on both their houses, the sooner we get rid of both the better,” a delegate at La Rochelle said.

Several party barons, including Laurent Fabius, a former Prime Minister, stayed away from the La Rochelle conference, apparently to avoid being dragged into likely weekend bloodletting as 3,000 party officials draw lessons from the defeat.

The sharpest attack on the ex-couple came from Claude Allègre, the last Socialist Education Minister. He called Mr Hollande a scheming operator. “His nice-guy exterior, full of humour, hides an unrestrained arriviste side,” he said. Ms Royal was “egotistical, impatient, unconstant, incompetent, only interested in one thing – herself,” he added.

The former party baron also said openly what many say in private: the Socialist party has no match for Mr Sarkozy. The President has shattered the party’s morale by recruiting half a dozen of its most admired figures to his Government. He has also neutralised Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the most plausible potential leader, by winning European backing for him to head the International Monetary Fund from next month.

Leading Socialists, including Mr Allegre, have attacked Ms Royal in four books this month. Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, a former Socialist Cabinet minister, who has published Au Revoir Madame Royal, said: “Royal got everything wrong right down the line. She played and still plays a purely personal game. She has not drawn any lesson from her defeat.”

Change of direction

GERMANY

Right The Christian Democratic Union forced the ruling Social Democratic Party into coalition in November 2005, handing the Chancellorship to Angela Merkel, the CDU leader

ITALY

Left The centre-Left Union coalition narrowly defeated the governing right-wing coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia in May 2006.

POLAND

Right Centre-Right coalition led by the Law and Justice Party defeated the Democratic Left Alliance in September 2005

SPAIN

Left The Socialist PSOE party defeated the governing centre-Right Popular Party in March 2004 in the wake of terrorist bombings in Madrid

SWEDEN

Right Centre-Right Alliance for Sweden coalition came to power after 12 years of Social Democrat rule in September 2006.

Sources: Times Archives; CIA World Factbook

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