Respect my privacy, Royal tells French media

French presidential hopeful Segolene Royal urged the media on Tuesday to stop prying into her private life after reports of tensions between her and her partner Francois Hollande - the head of the Socialist Party.
The couple have come under intense scrutiny since Royal won the party nomination last November, with the media suggesting that recent policy rifts reflected problems on a personal level. "What is important is that these rumours stop and that we are left alone a little," Royal said on Europe 1 radio.
"Every day there is fresh news about our relationship," she said, adding: "I think the French people are tired of this media treatment, this intrusion into private lives."
Royal and Hollande, who have four children, both hold political posts at a national and local level which means they are often apart, fuelling speculation about their private lives.
Hollande had to sacrifice his own ambitions to run for president as Royal triumphed in her party's primary, but he remains a key player in the Socialist camp and expects to have a major say over her eventual policy platform.
"Today, he wants to exist (politically), at the risk of confusing the campaign of Segolene Royal - and starting a war between his entourage and that of his partner," influential Le Monde daily wrote in its January 23 edition.
The pair clashed earlier this month over tax policy, with Hollande proposing tax increases for workers earning more than 4,000 euros ($5,206) a month. Royal distanced herself from this. In the wake of that row Royal's spokesman suggested Hollande was the Socialist candidate's greatest campaign handicap, a comment that cost him a one month suspension from his post.
French media now scrutinise every word and gesture when the couple are together for signs of discord or contradictions. "Kings always take back power. Queens last only a certain time," Le Monde quoted Hollande as saying recently, hinting at an on-going struggle for supremacy between the two. Royal laughed off the comment on Tuesday, saying France was a republic, not a monarchy.
Should Royal win election in the April/May ballot, Hollande has already made clear he will not join her in the president's official Elysee Palace. "Whatever happens, I will live where I live today," he told a newspaper last November.