Jospin: I've left politics and I'm not coming back

The former French prime minister Lionel Jospin broke a nine-month silence yesterday to announce that he was abandoning politics for good after leaving his Socialist party to face electoral humiliation.

In the newspaper Le Monde, Mr Jospin said that "speaking out doesn't mean coming back. I've left politics and I'm not coming back. I hold no more offices and I seek no more mandates."

Mr Jospin surprised his party by abruptly withdrawing from politics after the extreme-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen finished ahead of him in the first round of presidential elections in April. The leaderless Socialists, who were in a coalition government, lost power to the right in May.

Mr Jospin's sudden departure left his party broken and demoralised. It returned to the in-fighting that characterised the party under the former president François Mitterrand.

His wife, Sylviane, a philosopher, published her version of the election campaign in her bestselling diaries five months later, in which she bitterly attacked the victor, President Jacques Chirac.

Mr Jospin said yesterday: "I haven't lost interest in public debate. If, by my ideas, I can serve the Socialists, help the left and be useful to my country, I will be happy."