French Socialist party presidential candidate Segolene Royal at an electoral meeting in Paris. Photograph: Remy de la Mauviniere/AP
On the scale of phrases likely to send Britons running to the ballot box, "constitutional reform" is some way below road charging, council tax and C difficile. So why has Segolene Royal suddenly made it the centrepiece of her campaign?
Partly because when the French properly change their constitution, they also create a new republic. The Fifth Republic has been going since 1958, and the idea of a sixth sounds audacious. Partly because many of Francois Bayrou's supporters want the kind of change in French politics that neither of the two main parties seem to offer.
Partly because Royal came under vicious attack by her former campaign adviser, Eric Besson, last week: he accused her of populism, behaving like a demagogue and exploiting her femininity to quell dissent within the party. He has a book out tomorrow with more of the same. And partly because, as the campaign has progressed, Royal has seemed less of an iconoclast and more like an old-fashioned socialist.
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