Socialist hopeful stirs controversy with army plan for delinquent French teenagers

Ms Royal, one of eight children of a strict Catholic army colonel, has championed the idea of "much firmer policies" by placing young delinquents "within a military framework as early as their first offence" and said she was in favour of bringing back national service for young people.

The former minister for the family also proposed sending parents to school to learn better parenting skills following "the first act of incivility" by their children and placing family benefits under administrative supervision.

Ms Royal's remarks - made while she was visiting Seine-Saint-Denis, the troubled area north-east of Paris that saw fresh outbreaks of rioting earlier this week - sparked criticism from within her own party and sarcastic jibes from the ruling centre-right UMP, led by Nicolas Sarkozy.

"We've already got one Sarkozy, we don't need two," sniped Ms Royal's rival Socialist candidate, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

"I am not placing myself in Nicolas Sarkozy's territory, I'm putting myself in the territory of people who are suffering," said Ms Royal.

She added: "Being Socialist is first and foremost responding to the problems of people who are suffering.

"Where are the principal areas of suffering today? Unemployment and insecurity and violence. And often they are linked."

Yesterday, Socialist MP Jean-Luc Melachon denounced Ms Royal's propositions, describing them as "an appalling idea, taken out of 19th-century teaching manuals". He added that Ms Royal "belongs to the Left of social disasters and the politics of Blair and Schrder. But those ideas are not those of the Left."

While admitting the word "military" may have caused surprise, the glamorous mother-of-four defended her ideas yesterday. "Who goes to the field of humanitarian disasters? Soldiers, firemen, gendarmes that's to say the uniformed professions because they have the competence," she said.

After deploring what he called "the lack of new ideas" in Ms Royal's programme, beleaguered prime minister Dominique de Villepin piled on the irony, saying he was delighted "the government's actions have led to the evolution in the reflections of certain candidates, or more accurately, one female Socialist candidate".

Mr Sarkozy said he was "very happy" to learn that Ms Royal supported his actions on law and order and that her only criticism was that he was "not yet firm enough".

Adding that he was sorry "that she had not voted for any of [his] texts," he warned Ms Royal against "her tendency to be too authoritarian". He said: "I am sometimes a bit surprised by her propositions. If the future of young people is to be taken in hand by the army, why not? But I don't think so.

"If she thinks that the solution to problems is to put forward such incompetent suggestions, that's her choice."

On the far right, Carl Lang, the vice-president of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, which has made its tough stance on law and order its trademark as much as its xenophobia, congratulated himself upon "Sgolne Royal's latest remarkable propositions", saying "the 'Lepenisation' of minds goes beyond our wildest dreams".

"A few more months of campaigning and Jean-Marie Le Pen will be a candidate for the centre-left," he said.

The French army also reacted negatively to Ms Royal's comments.

"Going into the army should not be perceived as a punishment," said one French officer, who asked not to be named.

Some 800,000 young French men and women would be affected if national service, only dropped in France in 2001, was brought back.

Ms Royal previously infringed on the terrain of the right by campaigning for traditional family values and suggesting flexibility in the 35-hour work-week, a key Socialist project before they lost power in 2002.