The Woman Who Would Be France's President

Ségolène Royal knows how to attract a crowd. When she walks into a meeting of France's Socialist Party, her mere approach is enough to cause a stampede of camera-wielding, sharp-elbowed journalists, who brush aside Royal's rivals for the party's presidential nomination. As she glides through the crowd, Royal, 53, coyly appeals for decorum. "There should be some constraints, some respect for modesty," she coos in a smoky alto. But the hint of a smile on her lips betrays her: she's loving it. And why not? So blinding is Royal's star wattage that her opponents seem feckless in her wake. "They're not campaigning against a person," sighs a top aide to former Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, her main party rival, "but against a phenomenon."

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AUDIO: TIME's James Graff reports from Paris on the latest in France's presidential race

Royal defies easy categorization. She's a devoted mother of four who never married their father and a political progressive who talks of family values, law and order, and the virtue of discipline. Although a card-carrying member of France's political élite, she has cultivated a populist image by canvassing the opinions of ordinary citizens, whom she calls the "legitimate experts" on France's problems. In person, she listens with the prim attentiveness of a Catholic schoolgirl. Yet she has no false modesty over paparazzi adulation, shrugging at photos of her in a bikini that caused a stir this summer. As she says in an interview aboard a train between Poitiers and Paris, her two main political bases, "Why should one have to be sad, ugly and boring to go into politics these days?"

French voters seem ready to find out. Polls show Royal leading the field of prospective candidates for next year's presidential election, which could make her the country's first female head of state. (In May 1991, President François Mitterrand appointed France's first and only woman Prime Minister, Edith Cresson--and tossed her aside in less than a year.) Royal still has to take on France's hoary political establishment, which isn't quite so ready to yield to her popularity. French political parties remain clannish, ideological nests dominated by their male leaders. "All the polls show French society to be very open to the idea of a woman President," says Françoise Gaspard, a feminist sociologist and former Socialist deputy. "But the political parties are still very archaic, controlled by men who can't stand the idea. The fact that Ségolène is no longer acting as a 'comrade' but as a rival is completely astonishing for them--and completely insufferable."

Royal's own party has been keen to remind her that it isn't yet her race to lead. Socialist Party members won't choose their standard-bearer until November. Although Royal's momentum is growing, she is bound to face some nasty challenges from within the party before then. Royal is by far the most popular of the left's possible candidates and perhaps the only one who can beat Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the likely presidential candidate of the conservative Union for a Popular Movement. Royal has avoided squabbling with party rivals--an indication, her campaign advisers say, of her determination to speak directly to the general public. She says her goal as a politician is to help people "construct their lives and the happiness of their loved ones."