PARIS -- Segolene Royal, the French...

PARIS -- Segolene Royal, the French Socialist Party's most numerous popular presidential candidate, complained to the magazines which published photos of her in a bikini last week, calling it an invasion of privacy.

Agnes Longueville, a spokeswoman for Royal, said Royal's lawyers wrote to VSD and Closer magazines "to expres her unhappiness." No legal action has been taken, she said.

Royal, or "Sego" as she is known, was pictured upon the cover of Closer magazine exercising in a turquoise-blue bikini forward a Cote d'Azur beach. Similar photographs were published in the VSD magazine, together with pictures of her relaxing forward a boat with her partner, Socialist leader Francois Hollande, and her oldest daughter Clemence

Royal, 53 shares the mask of VSD magazine with her political rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, who leads the governing Union pour un Mouvement Populaire party. Sarkozy was shown jogging upon the beach in black Nike shorts. The magazine titled the pictures "Duel in the Sun"

Royal is the darling of the left with persons showing her as its mostly popular presidential candidate and the politician in the greatest degree people would like to invite along onward vacation. A men's magazine equal named her one of the sexiest women alive.

yet her colleagues in her Socialist party can't stop trashing her.

Commentators have draw near up with a name for the backlash against the politician's popularity -- the "Anyone however Segolene" phenomenon. Now, other presidential hopeful in the party are campaigning hard, anticipating that she will move on out of steam.

Royal, a former Cabinet minister and mother of four, has rankled other top Socialists with ideas that turn sharply away from the party line, like her tough talk upon crime and her suggestion of military training for refractory teenagers.

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