Royal's seal of approval?

By Paul Legg
BBC News

Mr Bayrou does not want to get too close to a candidate who remains the outsider

The willingness of the Socialist French presidential candidate Segolene Royal to take part in a televised debate with a contender who is already out of the race shows how important winning over Francois Bayrou's supporters is to her hopes of ultimate victory.

During the debate, Ms Royal said she was not actually seeking the defeated centrist contender's support but wanted to identify policy areas where they do agree.

Only a few days ago some of the grandees in Ms Royal's Socialist party openly called for an alliance with Mr Bayrou as the best way of helping her overtake the right-wing frontrunner, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the decisive second round in a week's time.

But during their debate, Ms Royal told the defeated centrist she was not seeking his endorsement; in reality, of course, she would like nothing more.

She knows, however, this was never something Mr Bayrou would offer. His own political ambitions are far from dead.

Presidential outsider

Not only is he likely to run for the presidency again in five years' time but he has announced plans to launch a new centrist party to contest parliamentary elections in June.

Mr Bayrou does not want to get too close to a Socialist candidate who remains the outsider to win the presidency.

Ms Royal needs Mr Bayrou's supporters to come to her aid

For her part, winning over a clear majority of those who backed Mr Bayrou is an absolute necessity.

She trails Mr Sarkozy by five percentage points and, while she can expect to pick up the support of those who voted for a disparate group of other left-wing parties last time, this is likely to be cancelled out by supporters of the far right switching to Mr Sarkozy.

Nearly one in five voters backed Francois Bayrou last time. Some of them certainly did so because they thought he had the best chance of defeating the controversial Mr Sarkozy in the second round.

Ms Royal now needs all of these voters, and many more of Mr Bayrou's followers, to move across to her if France is to elect its first woman president.