France moved a step closer to having its first female president today when Lionel Jospin, the former Socialist Prime Minister, withdrew from the race.

M Jospin, 69, removed his name from the list of potential candidates for the 2007 presidential poll after he accepted that his male rivals would not stand aside to give him a clear run against front-runner Segolene Royal.

His decision was welcomed by Mme Royal's aides, who urged M Jospin to support her in the battle to succeed Jacques Chirac.

M Jospin stirred up his party when he made a tearful comeback this summer after four years of political retirement and indicated that he wanted to make a bid for the top job.

But today the former economics professor told RTL radio: "I can confirm, it’s 'No’. I don’t regret it. I have taken the wisest decision."

"I have always said that, having been a solution for the Socialist party (in the past), I will not become a problem for the Socialist party."

M Jospin had retired from political life following a humiliating defeat in the 2002 presidential election, when Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the ultra-right National Front, forced him out of the run-off against conservative M Chirac.

Socialist critics had said M Jospin never tried to understand his 2002 defeat and would be a liability rather than an asset.

Mme Royal is heading voter opinion polls to lead the Socialist party into next year’s race, but it is up to the party’s some 200,000 members to elect their candidate in November.

M Jospin has avoided openly attacking Mme Royal in past weeks, but signalled he did not agree with her questioning of the 35-hour work week and her tough proposals on law-and-order, implying she had moved too far from the traditional Socialist agenda.

Gilles Savary, Mme Royal's spokesman, said: "In this country, everything...points to a deep longing for a change of eras and political personnel."

The remaining rivals, who include Francois Hollande - Mme Royal's long-term partner and leader of the Socialist Party - must declare their candidature between this Saturday and Tuesday. Mme Royal has signalled she will run, although she has not yet officially said so.

Laurent Fabius, another former prime minister, is set to also declare his candidature, hoping to convince members with a left-wing policy platform including a promise of an immediate increase in the minimum wage.

Some 54 per cent of Socialist voters want Mme Royal to become their party’s candidate, according to a recent Ipsos poll. Around 21 per cent supported M Jospin while 11 per cent preferred Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former finance minister.

Seven per cent liked Jack Lang, former culture minister, some 4 per cent opted for M Hollande and 3 per cent for M Fabius, who did himself no favours when he asked who would look after Mme Royal's children if she stood for the presidency.

But pollsters say that Socialist members are not necessarily set to have the same preferences as voters, with long-held party affiliations playing an important role.

Mme Royal, 53, regional leader of the western Poitou-Charentes region, is treated as a relative newcomer compared to her competitors, and has sparked some party anger with tough proposals on how to cut youth crime.

Her battle for party support could become even more complicated if M Hollande, the father of her four children, decided to join in the internal battle as well. He has not ruled out running, saying he is "at the party’s service".

In the summer there was uproar in France after two magazines printed paparazzi photographs of Mme Royal in a turquoise bikini walking along a beach while she was on holiday with M Hollande.

Mme Royal said she did not want to sue the magazines because that would give the pictures more importance than they deserved but many people in France were concerned that it was an invasion of privacy that trivialised politics.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and right-wing front-runner , has said he has respected Mme Royal for a long time and would be happy to debate with her.

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