Sarkozy eyes relaunch after election drubbing

PARIS - Nicolas Sarkozy has to relaunch his presidency after regional elections gave his conservatives a loud slap, restored the Opposition Socialists and hauled the far-right National Front from limbo.

The biggest electoral setback in Sarkozy's career places the French President at a crossroads decision about how to redeem the last two years of his five-year term.

Exit polls to the ballot's final round yesterday showed Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) had retained just one of the 22 regions in mainland France - the conservative bastion of Alsace - and lost the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

An alliance of Socialists and Greens swept the board, picking up 54 per cent of the overall vote, according to surveys.

The UMP had 34 per cent, while the extreme right National Front, wooing disgruntled conservatives, bounced back from near-oblivion to win more than 10 per cent.

Little more than half of the electorate bothered to cast their ballot, making it the lowest turnout since regional elections began in 1986.

In a nationwide TV address, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the results were disappointing. He hinted at a Government reshuffle, a prospect that had been widely predicted in the event of a debacle.

"We were unable to win over the electorate," Fillon said. "I accept my share of responsibility for this and will discuss it tomorrow morning with the President."

The results are a savage blow to Sarkozy. He is already plumbing the depths in the opinion polls as many now view the self-confidence that brought him to power as brashness or arrogance.

Adding to ill feeling is worry about some of the changes coming down the track. They include proposals to overhaul the pension system, such as a rise in the retirement age, and likely belt-tightening to tackle France's ballooning Government deficit.

Fillon argued the recession had helped to make voters "fearful of tomorrow", anxious that France's lavish lifestyle and welfare system were in peril.

"Our way of life is threatened - but it is not threatened by the reforms, because without these reforms we will not be able to afford it."

Under the French political system, the President has huge powers. He can dissolve the Lower House of Parliament, the National Assembly, and choose the Prime Minister.

Sarkozy won an emphatic victory in May 2007, and the UMP, riding on his coat tails, romped to a majority in Parliament.

Victory in the regional elections is the first big gain for the Socialists since their annus horribilis.

The party has been divided by claims to the leadership and embittered over stalwarts who have decamped to Fillon's wide-ranging centre-right Government.

"This result gives us our breath back. It gives us a chance to speed up the fight," the Socialists' defeated 2007 presidential candidate, Segolene Royal, said after winning her region with 60 per cent of the vote.

The National Front, which in 2007 had been KO'd by Sarkozy, also revived, winning a remarkable 17 per cent in those regions where there was a three-corner fight.

Its octogenarian leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, skilfully exploited a controversial debate on national identity launched by Immigration Minister Eric Besson, a Socialist defector.

Besson's move is blamed for stirring xenophobia and finger-pointing towards France's Muslim minority.

In mulling his options, Sarkozy must juggle with the voters' angry mood and discontent within the UMP, where concerns about the President's mercurial character and choice of strategy are starting to appear.

The pro-Sarkozy Le Figaro said before the vote that the President would ask Fillon to form a new, slightly modified Cabinet.

By doing so, Sarkozy would continue with his "policy of overture" in which senior politicians from non-UMP parties are lured into Government.

The tactic has weakened the opposition and helped to forge a broader consensus for addressing reforms, but at the cost of slower, less ambitious change.

The other choice was to weed out some of the non-UMP figures, including Besson and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who are reported to be unpopular with Sarkozy, and go for a more orthodox conservative lineup.

"We have to get back to our basic values," the UMP's parliamentary leader, Jean-Francois Cope, said on election night.