PARIS (EJP)---Socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal said Monday she might appoint Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a moderate, as her Prime Minister if she is elected.

Royal is eager to attract centrist voters and boost her chances of becoming president next Sunday.

Portraying her rightist rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, as a “divisive”politician, Royal underlined her own middle-of-the-road credentials by saying she could nominate Strauss-Kahn.

Sarkozy is favourite to win the May 6 runoff but floating centrist voters could still swing the ballot the way of the Socialists.

The 58-year-old Strauss-Kahn, often referred as DSK, is a former industry, finance and economy minister and Socialist party dove who has cross-party appeal;

He is a strong advocate of the French concept of a mixed economy, coupling free-market reform with the defence of a state role in industry.

Strauss-Kahn, who was born to a Jewish family in Neuilly-sur-Seine and spent part of his childhood in Monaco and Morocco, had sought the nomination to the Socialist presidential candicacy but was defeated by Ségolène Royal in November 2006.

In 1995, he was elected mayor of Sarcelles, a Paris suburb with a large Jewish population and married Anne Sinclair, a famous television journalist at the private channel TF1.

’He is a talented and imaginative man. He could be a very good Prime Minister, if that is my choice,’ Royal said in an interview with Le Monde newspaper published on Monday.

On Wednesday, a head-to-head television debate between Sarkozy and Royal is expected to be decisive.