Global General

Sarkozy regroups after elections

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-23 08:51

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy plotted strategy on Monday with his prime minister after their conservative party's crushing defeat in regional elections, with a Cabinet shuffle said to be in the offing.

Sunday's vote informally kicked off the 2012 presidential race, delivering a wake-up call to Sarkozy to change tack on jobs and other economic policies and reconnect with alienated voters if he wants to win a second term.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon met for 80 minutes with Sarkozy at the presidential palace with speculation widespread about who was likely to go in a Cabinet shake-up. Earlier, Sarkozy's chief of staff predicted a modest postelection reshuffle.

The long-flailing French left made a big-time comeback in the vote, which was colored by worries about jobs, paychecks and pensions in the wake of France's worst recession since World War II. The extreme right also bounced back from decline and proved that worries about immigration and France' evolving national identity remain alive.

Leftists swept races from the French Riviera to Paris. With 99.6 percent of ballots counted, the Socialists and their allies won 53.8 percent of the vote nationwide, while Sarkozy's UMP party had 35.5 percent. Turnout, though, hit record lows in Sunday's runoff - at 51 percent - and in the first round a week earlier, when it was just 46 percent.

The results show what a rough road the dynamic but increasingly isolated Sarkozy has ahead of him between now and 2012.

Nationwide strikes are planned on Tuesday by some of those who punished his party Sunday: train drivers angry over pension reforms that are a pillar of his presidential policy, and teachers angry over job cuts. Meanwhile, he faces new challenges from a popular green movement and a reinvigorated extreme right.

Sunday's vote came close to the sweep of all 26 regions that the Socialists were hoping for. Official results showed the conservatives holding on to Alsace but losing control of Corsica. Those were the only two regions run by the right going into the vote. Conservatives also took control of two overseas provinces - French Guiana in South America, and Reunion in the Indian Ocean.

"These elections show that the French are worried," Fillon said.

Fillon blamed the recession for his party's poor showing.

Associated Press