The losing candidate in May's French presidential election, Segolene Royal, has accused her own Socialist Party of betrayal and vowed to run again.
In a newly published book, Ms Royal also refers to her acrimonious split from her partner and current Socialist leader, Francois Hollande.
She writes about the need to overhaul the party by reuniting forces of the centre and the left.
Ms Royal has been little seen in public since her defeat by Nicolas Sarkozy.
In her book My Most Beautiful Story Is You, out on Tuesday, Ms Royal says both the Socialists and Mr Hollande let her down during the campaign.
"The candidate did not find a shoulder to lean on, to let go, to cry when things were tough, or to laugh in joyful times," she writes.
"I'm neither Joan of Arc nor the Virgin Mary"
"I was caught in a pincer movement between apparatchiks from my own party on one side, and the right on the other. How is it that the attacks came more from the left than from the right?
"To win another time, the support of a whole party and of a loving partner, who are fully with the candidate, are needed."
Party overhaul
Ms Royal split from her partner of three decades, with whom she has four children, after the May election amid recriminations and jockeying for position within the Socialist Party.
She also refers to her looks, which attracted some malicious comments in the press about her lack of clear policies.
"I'm neither Joan of Arc nor the Virgin Mary," she writes.
"People have gossiped about my outfits like they never did about the suits of these men. Should I have dressed in stone colours so that people were less interested in my clothes and more in the contents of my comments?"
Commenting on possible mistakes, Ms Royal says: "Was I prepared for the presidential election? Much more than people said, but certainly less than what would have been needed."
Ms Royal also tackles the apparent disarray her party was thrown into after defeat in presidential and parliamentary elections.
She says the party needs a radical overhaul, calling the social democracy embraced by her party "obsolete".
Ms Royal rejects, though, a lurch to the right, proposing instead a "central force of the left, capable of associating different strands", from anti-globalists to centrists.
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