French Socialist leader quits race for presidency

THE head of France's Socialists, Francois Hollande, yesterday pulled out of the race to head the party's challenge in next year's presidential election, 24 hours after his partner, front-runner Segolene Royal, said she would run.

"I will not be a candidate because I am at the service of my party and not the other way around," Hollande told the newspaper Dauphine Libere.

Hollande's decision narrows the Socialist field further after former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin dropped out last week.

So far Royal and former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn have said they will run. Laurent Fabius, prime minister under France's last Socialist president Francois Mitterrand and former culture minister Jack Lang are expected to announce their candidacy before Tuesday's deadline.

Opinion polls show Royal is not only the favourite on the left, but also the only opponent capable of beating the right's tough-talking law and order advocate Nicolas Sarkozy.

But she has upset some party members by questioning the Socialist's touchstone 35-hour working week and with her own proposals to cut youth crime.