Voters register discontent with French govt

France’s Prime Minister says he has heard the message from voters who showered support on the opposition left and reinforced the far right in the first round of regional elections.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin’s conservatives suffered a searing rebuke as Socialists, Communists and other leftist parties took some 40% of the national vote yesterday – nearly six percentage points higher than the right, according to Interior Ministry results from 23 of France’s 26 regions.

Meanwhile, the ultra-right National Front party positioned itself for the role of spoiler in the final round next Sunday, collecting nearly 14.9% of the vote.

The results echoed the growing discontent with the Raffirin government, whose popularity is on the wane, opinion polls show.

“I’ve listened to the French, region by region,” he said on national TV. “These messages have been expressed, and I am attentive to them.”

Mr Raffarin said he was ready to make the necessary decisions to respond to the “anxiousness” among the public.

In nearly two years in office, Mr Raffarin’s government has administered a bitter pill of budget cuts, fuelling protests by groups as diverse as doctors, railway workers, actors and researchers.

The elections offer a political weather vane for President Jacques Chirac, who selected Mr Raffarin from relative anonymity to head the government in 2002. The regionals are the first vote since then and the only national elections before the presidential contest in 2007.

Mr Chirac’s Union for a Popular Movement party, or UMP, runs 15 of France’s 26 regions, four of them overseas. The Socialists hold nine, and the Communists and centre-right UDF each control one.

Some political observers expect Mr Chirac to shake up the cabinet if opposition parties seize control of current UMP strongholds. The French press has speculated that Mr Raffarin himself could be replaced if the defeat is devastating.

Raffarin’s effort to reduce the budget deficit, which is in violation of European Union limits, has run afoul of a wide swathe of French society.

“In the period that we have covered, notably after the break in growth that has struck our country since 2000, we’ve had to act with courage and determination,” he said.

But the government has failed to give a boost to the economy, which grew a paltry 0.2% last year – the worst showing since 1993 – or stem the unemployment rate, now at around 10%.

Former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, calling the election results “encouraging”, said they amounted to “a sanction against the right”.

The elections, held every six years, are for regional leaders responsible for some infrastructure projects, job training, school construction and other tasks.

Not all the news was bad for the governing right, which has a chance of winning over from the left the prized Ile de France region, where Paris is located.