SÉGOLÈNE ROYAL urged French Socialists yesterday to endorse her as the party’s presidential candidate in a party-wide vote this week because she was their only hope of capturing the Elysée.

Ms Royal, 53, spent the weekend on the defensive after opinion polls showed Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 57, a former Finance Minister, catching up in the race for the support of the 217,000 party members. If no candidate wins a majority this Thursday, there will be a run-off a week later.

In six public debates, three of them televised nationally, the usually smiling Ms Royal revealed a short temper and a sometimes shaky grasp of issues, especially on Europe and foreign policy. She also emerged as a hardline leftist on the economy, disappointing centrist voters who had seen her as a pragmatic reformer. Nor has she been helped by the circulation of a video in which she said that teachers would have to work longer hours.

Ms Royal, who was heckled by teachers at a weekend rally, says that the remarks were deliberately taken out of context.The profession accounts for nearly a fifth of party members.

If the Socialists are to win elections next April for the successor to President Chirac, they must pick their candidate on the first vote, Ms Royal said.

“I am the only candidate capable of beating the Right,” she told Le Journal du Dimanche. “I embody the deep change that people want.”

With her image as a new-style politician who wants a return to moral values and is close to the public, the former junior minister remains by far the most popular figure on the Left. But doubts are creeping into the assumption that the spring election will be a “Ségo-Sarko” duel.

Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the governing Union for a Popular Movement, is worrying his colleagues because of his unpopularity among the young for the tough line he has taken as Interior Minister in the troubled immigrant areas.

Ms Royal fears that her campaign could be fatally damaged if she fails to knock out Mr Strauss-Kahn, a moderate leftist, and Laurent Fabius, 60, Prime Minister in the 1980s, who appeals to the hard Left. The runner-up would be certain to rally a “stop Ségolène” movement among those who see her as a traitor to socialism.

Ms Royal and the royalistes, as her supporters are called, are unhappy with what they see as the damage done by France’s first US-style presidential primary, with its television debates. “The party took the risk of weakening its candidate,” she said yesterday.

In the latest poll, by the CSA institute, support for Ms Royal was down five points, at 58 per cent. Mr Strauss-Kahn’s rose by five points, to 32 per cent, while Mr Fabius trailed at 9 per cent. There is concern among party elders that Ms Royal lacks the stature to stand up to Mr Sarkozy and that her campaign may soon collapse in humiliation. They cite her gaffes during the debates, such as confusion over nuclear proliferation and evasion over Turkey joining the European Union. She also made, and then diluted, a bizarre proposal that “juries” punish politicians who do not keep their promises.

Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, an MP who supports Mr Strauss-Kahn, said that Ms Royal had shown herself to be an authoritarian angling for conservative working-class support.

Mr Fabius said yesterday that he would reach a run-off against Ms Royal, whom he dismissed as a “regionalised Blairite”. Comparison with the British Prime Minister is an insult among French Socialists.

However, some party insiders say that many members who dislike Ms Royal will hold their noses and vote for her because she is by far their best hope of defeating the enemy.

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