Segolene Royal's chief attraction for French voters is that she is a woman, according to a poll conducted after she was selected as the Socialist Party's presidential candidate.

Thirty seven per cent of those surveyed cited Royal's gender as her most positive factor ahead of the 2007 election, according to the Ipsos poll.

The figure was even higher, at 41 per cent, among sympathisers of the opposition Socialists. Royal won more than 60 per cent of the vote in Thursday's Socialist primary.

Asked if Royal's nomination would make life more complicated for the right, particularly the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper: "More complicated perhaps for the men. One doesn't treat a female adversary in the same way that one treats a male one. Some men will have to change their style and so much the better."

Born in 1953, Royal grew up with seven siblings in a strict conservative household dominated by an authoritarian, military father. She studied politics and went on to the ENA elite school for civil servants, where she met her partner Francois Hollande, now Socialist party leader. They have four children.

Royal was environment, family and schools minister under previous Socialist governments. She shot to prominence in 2004 when she was elected president of the Poitou-Charentes region.

Echoing a famous John F. Kennedy speech after her victory on Friday, Royal said she had a vision of a united nation facing the future without abandoning its values.

"Today I call on all French people, the men and women of our country, to unite, to mobilize, to ask yourselves what you can do for our country," she said in the speech in Poitou-Charentes.

"The world has changed. France has moved on, so politics must change. I do not only want to embody this profound change but to build it with you."

Opinion polls have painted Royal as the only Socialist who can beat conservative frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy, the UMP leader and Interior Minister strongly tipped to be the right's candidate in the election.

Alliot-Marie said the results of the primary showed the Socialists were ready to change but said Royal now faced a tough task. "Segolene Royal will have to explain her project and not just simply cut and paste opinion polls," she told the newspaper.

Royal has presented herself as a force for change and willing to listen to the concerns of ordinary people but such considerations did not rank highly in the poll.

Twenty one per cent said they were attracted to Royal because she represented a renewal of the left while 18 per cent said it was because they believed she was the only one capable of beating Sarkozy.

Source: China Daily