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PARIS - Her actions now bearing the tinge of desperation, Socialist candidate Segolene Royal has begun a two-pronged attack to revive her flagging bid to become France's next President and stem a haemorrhage of support to a centrist candidate.
Royal began her fightback on Monday with a two-hour, meet-the-people programme on nationwide television, which is expected to be followed by a reshuffle of her campaign managers.
The latest opinion polls say conservative frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy would get 32 or 33 per cent of voting intentions in the first round on April 22, compared with 23 to 25 per cent for Royal, who has lost two percentage points in the past week to a fast-rising centrist, Francois Bayrou, now credited with 16 per cent.
Under France's presidential system, if no candidate scores a simple majority in the first round, the two candidates who win the most votes go to a runoff on May 6.
In a second round, Sarkozy would thrash Royal by 46 to 54 per cent. But if Bayrou, head of the liberal Union for French Democracy (UDF), made it through, he would beat Sarkozy by 48 to 52 per cent.
Royal's tilt at the presidential throne has become badly damaged by gaffes in foreign affairs and defence - two areas where the head of state has unquestioned primacy - and by the cost (undetailed but assumed to be colossal) of her leftwing election manifesto.
Unabashed by the row, Royal, 53, used her 100-point "presidential pact" as her main attempt to win over TV viewers. She promised she would boost the lowest pensions by 5 per cent "as soon as I get into office", that the young would be guaranteed a job and that any home that lay vacant for speculative reasons could be seized by the local authority at half of its market value and used for social housing.
The programme, I Have A Question to Ask You, features 100 members of the public who are pre-selected for their profile and their questions.
Closeted all day before the live broadcast, their mobile phones confiscated, they are forbidden from making any followup question or interrupting or barracking.
Almost laughably tame by "Anglo-Saxon" standards, where voters judge a politician on his or her ability to deal with the bearpit, the format was well suited for Royal, who copes badly with disruption and challenge.
But it also cast light on her woodenness and, for many, a condescending style that is part professor, part elder sister.
At one point, she walked stiffly over to a tearful handicapped questioner and patted him on the shoulder, and then upbraided the presenter for failing to provide a place for his wheelchair so he didn't have to sit conspicuously in the aisle.
Outside the TV lights, though, Royal has to get her campaign in order. She has been damned by poor advice on trips abroad, which has highlighted her inexperience in foreign affairs, and has been slow and reactive to the fast-moving, smoother-managed Sarkozy roadshow.
Last week, one of her leading advisers stalked out, infuriated by the failure to give details about the cost of the election manifesto.
Meddling by the party hierarchy seems to have been the problem. Royal is expected to overhaul the team this week.
