For months, Royal was patronized by party insiders for politicking without a program and for spending much of her time in her campaign headquarters - monitoring an interactive site where thousands of voters have registered their concerns and ideas.

Her recent comments have prompted several of the male contenders in her own camp to distance themselves from her proposals - even the party chief, François Hollande, her partner and father of their four children, criticized some of her ideas. But her poll ratings suggest that her strategy has paid off so far: Some recent surveys suggest that she would even beat Nicolas Sarkozy, the head of the governing Gaullist party, if the presidential election took place now.

Few have so far compared her to prominent center-left reformers in other Western countries, like Blair or Bill Clinton in the United States, who each replaced a traditional leftist approach with economic pragmatism. But some parallels can already be drawn. Like the "war on crime" Clinton promised in his 1992 election campaign or Blair's 1997 election slogan, "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime," Royal's proposals on law and order wade deep into the right's traditional territory.

Following renewed unrest in immigrant suburbs outside Paris last week, she proposed to enroll first-time young offenders into community service programs run by the military to teach them discipline and citizenship.

She also wants parents of troublemaking children to attend "parenting schools" and proposes to freeze child benefits in case unruly offspring cause trouble.

A poll conducted by Ipsos and published in Le Monde on Monday, indicated that 69 percent of respondents agreed with her proposal on the military programs for young offenders and 55 percent backed her idea about parenting schools and child benefits.

Even among Socialist voters, 67 percent agreed on the military program and 50 percent on parenting schools and benefits.

[ 06 June 2006: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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But as the political campaign advances, the main test of Royal's ability to lure voters and her willingness to reform will be her stance on reforming France's rigid labor market

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Originally posted by Geneva:
her poll ratings suggest that her strategy has paid off so far: Some recent surveys suggest that she would even beat Nicolas Sarkozy, the head of the governing Gaullist party, if the presidential election took place now.

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