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Left sweeps French local polls

Paris: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his right-wing Conservative party suffered a serious electoral defeat at the hands of the Socialist Party in Sunday’s local elections.

While the Right held on to the country’s second largest city, Marseille, albeit by a hair’s breadth, it lost almost 40 towns of over 30,000 inhabitants including cities such as Lyon, Strasbourg, and Toulouse in a left-wing wave that swept the country.

In Paris, Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoe bettered his position while the northern city of Caen, which had been governed by the Right for the past 100 years, decided to vote Left.

His triumphant re-election has boosted his chances of winning the Socialist Party’s leadership against frontrunner Segolene Royal and of carrying its colours in the 2012 presidential race.

The high abstention rate of 38 per cent is said to have benefited the Left.

The communists lost some notable bastions which passed into socialist hands.

Victorious left-wing leaders stepped up demands on Monday for President Nicolas Sarkozy to make big changes in government, after inflicting heavy losses on his right-wing camp.

The vote was an indictment of Mr. Sarkozy’s personal style and his government’s lacklustre performance in its first 10 months in power.

The ruling Right sought to play down the scale of its defeat, with Prime Minister Francois Fillon attributing it to low turnout, at 62 per cent, and voter impatience with the pace of Mr. Sarkozy’s reforms. But Mr. Sarkozy’s Socialist rival for the presidency, Ms. Royal, said the results were a “punishment vote.”

The French press described the results as a “disaster,” a “disavowal” or a “rout” — and a clear warning shot for the government.

“Mister President: somebody needs to tell you this: you well and truly lost this local election,” wrote the left-wing Liberation.

“The Sarkozy spell has broken in the space of a few months.”

The Socialist Party took an estimated 49 per cent of Sunday’s vote, against 47.5 per cent for the UMP.

The Left now controls 58 per cent of towns with more than 30,000 inhabitants, after winning 40 from the Right, including right-wing bastions Metz and Reims, though Mr. Sarkozy’s camp kept its grip on Marseille.

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