Sarkozy and UMP party fight for lives

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy’s party yesterday fought to recover from a first-round beating in French regional elections that also saw the far-right National Front surge back.

Final results showed the opposition Socialists set to crush Sarkozy’s governing UMP party in Sunday’s second-round polls – the last major ballot before the 2012 presidential vote.

In a vote seen as a key test of Sarkozy’s popularity, the Socialists picked up 29.5% in the first round in the 22 regions, ahead of the UMP with 26.3%, the interior ministry said.

The outcome was seen as punishment by voters reeling from the global economic crisis that has sent French unemployment soaring to its highest level in a decade.

The anti-immigrant National Front, led by firebrand Jean-Marie Le Pen, made a stronger-than-expected showing when it picked up nearly 12% of the vote. The National Front is now set to take its anti-immigrant message into the second round campaign in 12 regions.

Turnout was a record low 46% of the 44 million eligible voters.

The Elysee presidential palace made no public comment on the results, but Prime Minister Francois Fillon said he was hoping a better turnout in the second round would help the UMP.

“We are all mobilised to fight,” Fillon said on the campaign trail yesterday. “It is difficult to hold regional elections, mid-term elections in the context of a global financial crisis.”

The pro-government Figaro newspaper said Sarkozy’s UMP had “a week to avoid a debacle” by convincing voters who stayed away in the first round to cast their ballots in the runoff.

The Socialists moved to forge alliances with smaller parties ahead of round two. They held talks with the green party, Europe Ecologie, which picked up 12.5% of the vote.

Sarkozy’s party meanwhile faced a challenge from the far-right that threatened to weaken the UMP’s campaign in several regions and allow the Socialists to win.

“It’s the phoenix rising from the ashes,” the 81-year-old Le Pen told a news conference yesterday.

“The National Front has returned to the forefront of French politics.”

Social tensions have risen in recent months after a government-sponsored debate on national identity raised racial sensitivities and was widely slammed as a divisive project that stigmatises immigrants.

The vote could boost Socialist leader Martine Aubry’s credibility as leader of the deeply divided party, which is set to hold primaries to choose a presidential candidate next year. Polls show former Socialist finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, ranks as the left’s best hope of beating Sarkozy.

Nearly three years into his mandate, Sarkozy is struggling with the lowest approval ratings of his presidency and commentators agree he could be beaten in 2012.