Give Offenders Military Service, French Socialist Contender Says

Ségolène Royal, the Socialist frontrunner for France's presidential election next year, has sent a shockwave through her party by proposing that teenagers who commit an offence should be sent to do military service.

"We need a return to the heavy hand," said Ms Royal on a visit to Paris's run-down suburbs in the wake of two nights of rioting in which youths burnt cars and attacked police.

Ms Royal, the daughter of a retired army general, said "the abolition of military service was a mistake" and it was time to reinvent it.

Ms Royal's socialist rivals for the presidential nomination accused her of pandering to the right. If chosen as the left's candidate she might well face Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, who has made no secret of wanting to win over supporters of the extreme right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former finance minister and rival contender for the Socialist presidential nomination, said: "We already have one Sarkozy in this country, there's no point having two."

Ms Royal, the president of the southwestern Poitou-Charentes region, made the comments on a visit to Bondy, a suburb east of Paris that was hit by weeks of rioting last November. New riots broke out this week in nearby Montfermeil and Clichy-sous-Bois. She said that as soon as any teenager over 16 committed a criminal offence they should be sent for army training. Compulsory military service in France was abolished in 2001.

Ms Royal yesterday denied she was stealing Mr Sarkozy's ground. "The word military might have surprised people," she said. "The military training isn't a military service training where one learns to shoot or drive a tank - although that might interest the young, or amuse the boys. But it's about giving back a certain number of reference points for young people in terms of respect." She described the type of army training she envisaged as vocational "humanitarian" work.

Some on the left supported Ms Royal. The Socialist deputy for Essonne, Manuel Valls, praised her straight-talking. Others said she had forced a crucial debate among Socialist party members. Security is likely to be a key campaign issue in the presidential election after last year's widespread rioting on rundown estates across France.