(Angus Reid Global Scan) - Regional leader and former environment minister Ségolène Royal has become the frontrunner in the race to choose the presidential nominee for France's Socialist Party (PS), according to a poll by CSA published in Le Parisien. 36 per cent of respondents, and 48 per cent of PS supporters, would prefer to have Royal as a candidate.

Former presidential candidate and prime minister Lionel Jospin is second with 26 per cent, followed by former culture and education minister Jack Lang with 18 per cent, former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn with 17 per cent, and current PS leader François Hollande and former prime minister Laurent Fabius with 12 per cent each.

In September, Royal said she would be capable of defeating interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy of the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) "or another person" in the presidential election. Lang said the election "should not be a beauty contest."

It is currently unclear if Jospin will seek the PS nomination once again. Jospin served as education minister under president François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1992, and as prime minister from June 1997 to May 2002. In the 1995 presidential election, Jospin lost a run-off to UMP member Jacques Chirac.

In the 2002 ballot, Jospin finished third with 16.2 per cent and was left out of the second round between Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front (FN). The next election is tentatively scheduled for April 2007.

In a second list that omits Jospin as an option, Royal is first with 37 per cent, followed by Lang with 23 per cent, and Strauss-Kahn with 22 per cent.

Polling Data

Who would you prefer as the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party (PS) in the 2007 election?

List 1 (with Lionel Jospin)

List 2 (without Lionel Jospin)

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