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'Punishment vote' for Sarkozy
17/03/2008 10:49 - (SA)
Paris - Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing party suffered losses in French local elections on Sunday, poll projections showed, in what the opposition Socialists called a "punishment vote" for the reforming president.
The vote, the first major test of Sarkozy's popularity since he defeated the Socialist Segelone Royal last May, was seen as a referendum on the achievements of a president whose opinion poll ratings have plummeted.
The Socialists won cities across the country including Strasbourg, Toulouse and the right-wing bastions of Amiens, Caen and Reims after the final round of the vote, projections by Ipsos-Dell and TNS Sofres said.
The left was already guaranteed Paris and the third biggest city Lyon after last weekend's first round.
But projections showed that the right would hang on to the symbolic prize of the second city of Marseille in the south.
Segolene Royal said the results were a "punishment vote" and called on the government to change its policies.
But Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the pace of Sarkozy's reforms would continue unabated. Within minutes of the polls closing he took to the nation's airwaves, playing down the importance of the results.
The left had merely "partially restored the situation" to that before the last local elections in 2001, Fillon said on TFI television.
'The people will have spoken'
Sarkozy has however signalled that the results would lead to some adjustments.
"The people will have spoken. I will naturally take into account what they expressed," he said 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 has earned him the nickname "the Bling-Bling president."
Fewer than four in 10 voters now approve of his performance. Last July his ratings stood at 67%.
Since coming to power, Sarkozy has eased France's 35-hour work week, which is the shortest in Europe; cut pension benefits for some state workers, which presidents before him tried and failed to do; and given universities more autonomy.
Unemployment meanwhile has fallen to 7.5%, 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 he is distracted by his personal life, after his divorce from second wife Cecilia and swift marriage to supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni.
- AFP
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