M&C News: Ms. President? France mulls prospects

MNC NEWSMs. President? France mulls prospects

So what if France`s next head of state were a 'she?' The question has long been a favored theme of talk-show debates, but nobody really took the idea seriously -- in part, because there were no viable candidates at hand. Until now. This month, two prominent female members of France`s top two parties suggested they might consider running in the 2007 presidential elections. Not in so many words. They are, after all, politicians. But Socialist party deputy Segolene Royal -- the female half of France`s leftist power couple -- said in early September she might mull a bid if nobody better did so. Then France`s center-right Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie suggested, sort of, that she might do the same. 'I`ll participate in the presidential debate,' Alliot-Marie told Le Journal de Dimanche newspaper, in an interview published Sunday. 'I`ve even the intention of playing a top role.' Pundits have seized that ambiguous statement as a near-declaration of intent. Never mind that Alliot-Marie`s Union for a Popular Movement party already has two formidable presidential hopefuls -- French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who also heads the UMP party. Or that the current president -- Jacques Chirac -- has not yet ruled out running for a third presidential term, however unlikely the prospect. 'Elysee 2007: Two women advance,' the Journal du Dimanche wrote in a headline Sunday.
'I have the feeling that being a woman isn`t a handicap anymore to become a presidential candidate,' said Etienne Schweisguth, an analyst at the Paris-based Center for the Studies of French Political Life, assessing the sentiments of ordinary French.