FRENCH SOCIALIST leader Martine Aubry spoke of “a victory without precedent” yesterday as president Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right party suffered a comprehensive defeat in regional elections.
The right did, however, manage to cling to power in one mainland region to prevent the left from making a clean sweep, according to exit polls.
The Socialist Party and its allies won some 54 per cent of the vote at a national level, giving the left control of 21 of the 22 regions in the French métropole, while Sarkozy’s UMP bloc won 36 per cent, an OpinionWay exit poll said.
Aubry, whose reputation has been enhanced by her party’s commanding performance, said the people of France had spoken and must be heard, suggesting a “profound change in policies” was now required of the government.
The far-right National Front (FN) took 8.7 per cent nationwide, but party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen garnered the support of almost 25 per cent of voters in his region in the south of France.
As polls closed last night and the scale of the right’s drubbing became apparent, prime minister François Fillon said he would “take my share of the responsibility” for the defeat. He is due to meet Sarkozy at the Elysée Palace this morning to discuss the results.
Turnout was low, although about 4 per cent higher than in last week’s first round. Polling agencies TNS-Sofres and OpinionWay both predicted that the second-round abstention rate would be 49 per cent.
Last week’s first-round vote saw the centre-right win its lowest share of the vote in more than three decades. The higher turnout helped raise its score yesterday, but it nonetheless appeared to have lost control of Corsica and retained just one region on the mainland – its stronghold of Alsace. A second source of consolation for Sarkozy’s supporters was taking the Indian Ocean island of Réunion.
While Sarkozy insisted before last week’s first round of voting that the regional elections would have “regional consequences”, speculation had already begun last night about whether he would reshuffle his cabinet or slow the pace of reforms after yesterday’s setback.
"Whatever happens, there won't be a big shake-up. It will be a modest, technical reshuffle, because some adjustments are worth doing," Sarkozy's chief adviser Claude Guéant told the newspaper La Croix. But he added: "There could be some political content amid the 'technical'."
One report, in the daily Le Figaro, suggested Fillon would offer his government's resignation today but that Sarkozy would ask him to form a new, slightly modified cabinet.
Meanwhile, the Socialists hope to build on their momentum to reunite their divided party and mount a credible challenge to Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election. The strength of the left’s showing yesterday owes much to an agreement between the Socialists, the Europe Écologie alliance and the Front de Gauche to merge their lists for the second round.
In the first round on March 14th, Sarkozy’s party trailed the Socialists with 26.3 to 29.5 per cent of the national vote. Europe Écologie scored 12.5 per cent, consolidating its position as a political force and the third-biggest bloc in French politics.
Another winner over the past week has been 81-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen, who – in what is widely believed to have been his last election as leader of the FN – confounded pollsters by leading his party to a significant recovery after a dismal showing in last year’s European elections. The FN did well enough to stay in the race in 12 mainland regions, depriving Mr Sarkozy’s party of about 10 per cent of right-wing voters in yesterday’s election.