French Socialists vote for presidential candidate

Socialists voted yesterday in a primary ballot that frontrunner Segolene Royal hopes will give her a strong endorsement to lead the party into next year's presidential election.

Initial estimates by France's LCI television late last night indicated that Ms Royal had won the ballot.

LCI said early forecasts suggested Ms Royal had won an absolute majority in the ballot of some 219,000 Socialist party members.

Voting ended at 10 p.m. (2100 GMT) at party offices across France and the official result was due in the early hours of today.

Outright victory in the first round would boost Ms Royal's campaign to become France's first woman president and underline her opinion poll status as the only Socialist capable of beating the right's frontrunner, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the 2007 ballot.

Ms Royal, a 53-year-old regional leader, has enjoyed a huge poll lead over her more experienced rivals Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Laurent Fabius for months after campaigning as the candidate to shake up France's hidebound political system.

"I expect the results in all serenity," a smiling Ms Royal said as she cast her vote in her western Poitou-Charentes region. Despite a long career in politics, Ms Royal has cultivated her image as a fresh face, strong on traditional values and ready to listen to citizens' concerns that has played well with a public tired of leaders cast from the same elitist mould.

"I think it's perhaps time for France to change a bit, to change from the men who've always been in power," said Mahmoud Belaid, 35, an IT engineer who voted in Paris. "Compared with the other two candidates, she might be able to do it better."

Mr Strauss-Kahn, 57, is a former finance minister who has positioned himself as a Social Democrat in the classic western European mould. Mr Fabius, 60, was prime minister in the 1980s and presented himself a hard left winger.

While the Socialists held a primary election in 1995, it was a low-key event between just two candidates with no televised debates.

This time around, the party organised six debates among the rivals and media coverage has been heavy.