Royal's French presidential dream is shattered

By Kerstin Gehmlich

PARIS (Reuters) - Rarely has a French politician risen as spectacularly as Segolene Royal, but inexperience and party divisions shattered her dream of becoming France's first woman president.

Royal, 53, outwitted a string of male rivals to become the Socialists' presidential candidate but questions hang over the party's future direction after her defeat by conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in Sunday's election run-off.

Hardly known to most voters only three years ago, Royal is a regional leader who captured France's imagination with her glamorous looks as well as a string of proposals that broke with party traditions.

She initially basked in the media attention and photographs of her in a bikini appeared in magazines.

The honeymoon ended quickly when she made a series of foreign policy gaffes and colleagues attacked her, saying she was ignoring party traditions and was authoritarian in the way she conducted her campaign.

Royal has failed to unite a party that has been in crisis since the 2002 presidential election, when far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen beat the Socialist candidate into third place.

Her economic plans included an increase in the minimum wage and placed her firmly on the left, but she also defended positions that critics called "un-Socialist". Some said Royal betrayed her roots when she courted voters who had supported centrist Francois Bayrou in the first-round vote in April.

"I'm a free woman!" became Royal's battle cry to justify policies such as suggestions people should fly a French flag from their balconies on public holidays and a plan to send young offenders to military-style boot camps.