'Rainbow Warrior' returns to haunt French candidate Royal

New Zealand police are to "re-examine" the Rainbow Warrior affair after an allegation that the bomb which destroyed the Greenpeace ship in 1985 was planted by the brother of the French presidential front-runner, Ségolène Royal.

The New Zealand government said, however, that it was "unlikely" that the investigation of the attack on the ship by French government agents would be formally reopened.

The fact that Lieutenant Gérard Royal, of the French intelligence service, was part of the large team of French agents which attacked the ship has been public knowledge for 11 years. Another member of the Royal family, his and Ségolène's brother, Antoine, has now alleged that Gérard actually planted the bomb which damaged the ship and killed a Greenpeace photographer in Auckland harbour in July 1985.

This revelation caused little initial interest in France, but stirred a wave of indignation in New Zealand over the weekend.

Mme Royal's meteoric rise in French presidential politics has been based partly on willingness to talk plainly on "family" issues. Now, it seems, Mme Royal's own complex family history is beginning to haunt her.

Her position as overwhelming favourite to win the "nomination" as Socialist presidential candidate next month - confirmed by two polls over the weekend - has stirred bitter jealousies and acrimony within France's main opposition party. Knives are out, in particular, for the party leader, François Hollande, Royal's common-law husband and father of her four children.

Mme Royal's soaraway pre-primary campaign has wrecked M. Hollande's own chances of emerging as a compromise centre-left candidate.

As party leader, it has also left him in an impossible situation, squeezed between his wife and the three other, struggling Socialist candidates.

He recently told French journalists, only half-jokingly, that he was "living through a tragedy".