PARIS, March 16: President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing party suffered losses in French local elections on Sunday that were the first major test of his popularity since he took office, projections from polling firms showed.
Sarkozy’s opinion poll ratings have plummeted since his triumphant presidential victory last May and these elections, while fought mostly on local issues, were seen as a referendum on his achievements.
The opposition Socialists took control of cities across the country including the three right-wing bastions of Amiens, Caen and Reims after the final round of the vote, projections from Ipsos-Dell and TNS Sofres said.
The left was already guaranteed Paris and the third biggest city Lyon after last week’s first round, and could take the prizes of the second city of Marseille in the south and Toulouse in the southwest.
Projections for these cities were still to be announced.
Sarkozy has signalled that the election results would lead to some adjustments.
“The people will have spoken. I will naturally take into account what they expressed,” said Sarkozy last week.
Aides have suggested an image makeover was in order to rekindle voter approval of the 53-year-old president, criticised for a brash and at times extravagant style that earned him the nickname “the Bling-Bling president.” In the run-up to the vote, Sarkozy kept a low profile as he battled to halt a freefall in opinion polls since January that has seen him lose some 30 points.
Fewer than four in 10 voters now approve of his performance. Last July his ratings stood at 67 per cent.
Since coming to power, Sarkozy has eased France’s 35-hour work week, the shortest in Europe, and reduced pension benefits for state workers, a feat which presidents before him tried and failed to do. Unemployment meanwhile has fallen to 7.5 per cent, its lowest level in more than two decades.
But this has not dispelled public gloom, with consumer confidence at a 21-year low.
Pollsters attribute Sarkozy’s dismal ratings drop to pessimism about the economy coupled with perceptions that the president is distracted by his personal life, after his divorce from second wife Cecilia and swift marriage to supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni.
In Sunday’s vote, Marseille was shaping up as the big prize, with the incumbent right-wing mayor locked in a tight race against a Socialist who has allied with a centrist candidate.
Another citadel of the right, Toulouse could fall to the left after 37 years of right-wing administration in France’s fourth largest city and home to aeronautics giant Airbus.
Strasbourg in the east is also set to swing left after Socialists called on voters to “punish” Sarkozy and his government at the ballot box on Sunday.
The first round saw the left consolidate its hold in both Paris and Lyon, two cities taken from the right in 2001.
Despite their gains in Sunday’s vote, the rudderless Socialists’ troubles were far from over as a leadership battle loomed.
The elections saw Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe boost his position as a possible contender against Segolene Royal, who lost to Sarkozy in the presidential elections last year.
Lacking a clear political programme, the Socialists remain in disarray, having lost three presidential elections in a row — most humiliatingly in 2002 when Lionel Jospin was trounced by far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round.—AFP