If you were to put Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jacques Attali in a small room, they would quarrel about almost everything. The veteran far-right leader and the owlish former Mitterrand aide, now an all-purpose fixer and guru, come from opposite corners of the wrestling ring of French politics and life.

But the ultra-right nationalist and the socialist apparatchik do agree on one thing. Both say Ségolène Royal will be the first woman to become president of the French Republic.

They are not the only ones to make such a rash prediction. I attended a Socialist rally in Mme Royal's home region of Poitou-Charente a couple of years ago. The hall, in the small, working-class town of La Couronne, near Angoulème, throbbed with enthusiasm for "Ségo", the elegant, cool, beautiful daughter of a right-wing army officer. The man next to me, a 50-something local councillor, said: "I have known it for a long time. People in this region have known it for a long time. Ségolène will be the first woman to become president."

Seems to be a very interesting and fascinating woman.

and an interview