Sarkozy, you're finished

A feeble economy and lack of jobs could see Nicolas Sarkozy ousted from office as France goes to the polls for the first round of presidential elections today.

Many people are fed up with Sarkozy's showy style and his failure to bring down unemployment.

If they do vote against him, Sarkozy will become the country's first president to lose a fight for re-election in more than 30 years.

The result of today's poll will cut the list of 10 candidates down to just two finalists for the decisive run-off on May 6, which will set a course for the next five years.

Polls have showed for months that conservative Sarkozy - who has been relatively unpopular for months, if not years - and Francois Hollande, a Socialist, are likely to make the cut.

Arriving for battle: French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, arrives with wife Carla Bruni, right to cast his vote in the first round of 2012 French presidential election in Paris

 

Not popular: If France does vote against him, Sarkozy will become the country's first president to lose a fight for re-election in more than 30 years

 

 

Praying for divine intervention? Sarkozy raises his eyes to the sky as he and Ms Bruni make their way into the polling booth in Paris

Hollande, 57, promises less drastic spending cuts than Sarkozy and wants higher taxes on the wealthy to fund state-aided job creation, in particular a 75 per cent upper tax rate on income above 1 million euros ($1.32million).

Sarkozy, defending his record on the campaign trail, has repeatedly pointed to a tough economic climate and debt troubles across Europe - not just in France.

But with turnout a looming question, surprises could await among candidates including far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen, Communist-backed firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon or centrist Francois Bayrou.

J'adore him: Polls have shown that Francois Hollande, a Socialist, is the favourite with Sarkozy to make the final two in the French presidential elections

Hopefuls: Jean-Luc Melenchon, Front de Gauche leftist party's candidate, left, and Marine Le Pen, National Front Party Candidate, right, cast their votes

While they are not expected to win, a strong performance by one or all of them could cast a shadow over the second round vote. Polls show the five other candidates are expected to receive low single-digit percentages.

The Interior Ministry was expected to release its first estimates of turnout at around midday.

Meanwhile balloting got under way yesterday in France's embassies and overseas holdings. Polls have shown that concerns about jobs - with the unemployment rate hovering near a 10-year high - and the economy are top issues.

Cast your votes: A woman takes her ballots in Mont Saint-Michel, northwestern France, left, while right, a French ex pat votes at a polling booth in Shanghai

The campaign has often centred on issues such as immigration, Islam in France, and calls for taxes on the rich - which experts suggest will in fact have little effect on France's high state budget deficit.

The presidential election will determine the make-up of the next government and will finish just a month before elections for the National Assembly that is currently controlled by Mr Sarkozy's conservatives.

Like Barack Obama, Sarkozy swept to power on a wave of hope for change. His wave crashed on the global financial crisis and his own failings.

Around the word: Indian-French citizens stand in line at a polling station in Pondicherry, south-east India

Queue: Monks of Mont des Cats' abbey, queue to cast their ballots in Godewaersvelde, northern France

SARKOZY: A FALL FROM GRACE

In 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy inspired voters with pledges to break with the past and make France a more dynamic economy.

But after an initial wave of reforms, his momentum fizzled. 

His stormy personal life got in the way: he divorced months into office, then quickly married former supermodel Carla Bruni, and became seen as a bling-bling president more concerned with pleasing his super-rich friends than serving the public.

He enjoyed a string of foreign policy successes, improving relations with the United States and Israel, leading an international airstrike campaign in Libya and rallying European partners to stem Europe's financial crisis.

But voters at home felt forgotten and hurt by a presidency that included France's worst recession since World War II.

Francois Hollande, despite a bland persona and few eye-catching campaign ideas, has been more popular than Sarkozy for months.

Sarkozy showed signs of a possible comeback once he hit the campaign trail. The shooting rampage in southern France also gave him a platform to appear presidential and project the tough guy image that helped launch him to national prominence.

But in recent days his support has lagged again. The last polls before the election, released on Friday, showed Sarkozy slipping a few points behind Hollande in the first round - and a crushing 10 to 15 points away from victory in the runoff.

Under a quirk of French electoral rules, balloting got under way on Saturday in France's embassies and overseas holdings, starting in tiny Saint Pierre and Miquelon - islands south of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic Ocean. 

Campaigning and the release of poll data have been suspended until the first-round results come in this evening.

Surprises may await, like a surge by the anti-immigrant far right or utopian far left. Hollande, in his Mr Nice Guy kind of way, has tapped into a fear of the free market that has always held more sway in France than almost anywhere in the West, and has enjoyed a resurgence in the era of Occupy Wall Street and anti-banker backlash.

Hollande wants to tax high-income earners at 75 per cent and reconsider a hard-won European fiscal treaty meant to stem the continent's debt crisis. He says it's too focused on cost-cutting and hurts ordinary people.

Investors worry that France - no matter who's in charge, but especially if it is Hollande - is on a path to debt disaster if it doesn't tighten public finances and slash or rethink its generous welfare benefits.

Yet Hollande is just one of five leftists in today's race - and he's the most moderate and pragmatic of the bunch. If fiery rival Jean-Luc Melenchon, with his red neck-scarves and rallies thick with communist red flags, scores strongly, he and his voters will press Hollande to swing his own policies even farther leftward.

Speaking to international reporters on Friday, Melenchon - who wants to tax the ultra-rich at 100 per cent - called international finance 'parasitic.' He criticised U.S. hegemony and military might, looking instead to communist China for partnership.

On the other side of the spectrum, the campaign fear-mongering has a different focus: France's second most popular religion.

Sealing fate: A French woman carries her daughter as she casts her vote at the French Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam

UK ARRIVES ON FRANCE'S ELECTORAL MAP

French ex-pats living in the UK will vote for a French MP for Northern Europe for the first time in June.

The person who wins this newly created position will sit in the French National Assembly.

Their constituency will cover Northern Europe, which include the UK Scandinavia and the Baltic counties.

Eleven French MPs will represent natives living outside France. Some 400,000 live in London alone, making the capital the sixth largest French city.

Axelle Lemaire, chair of the French Socialist Party in London and a King’s College London graduate, is in the running for the position.

Far right candidate Marine Le Pen rails against the 'Islamisation' of France and made a stink about the widespread availability of halal meat and Muslims praying on pavements due to a lack of mosque space.

The rhetoric horrifies many voters and stigmatises France's estimated five million Muslims - Western Europe's largest Muslim population. But it has hit a nerve among many French people, especially after a suspected gunman killed Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers in the name of radical Islam in a rampage last month.

Le Pen - and many of her voters - link Islam with immigration, since many French Muslims have family roots in former colonies in Africa. And they think France has too much of both.

Sarkozy has followed Le Pen's lead. He championed a ban on Islamic face veils that he says imprison women and go against French values, and says the country should slash the number of immigrants it takes in. And he's threatened to pull France out of Europe's border-free travel zone if more is not done to tackle illegal immigration, an idea gaining traction in other capitals.

However in a Friday night rally in the Riviera city of Nice, Sarkozy sought to distance himself from the far right and appealed to his followers: 'We must win!'

Hollande looked calm and easygoing as he walked down the main street of Vitry-le-Francois in eastern France on Friday, stopping in a pizzeria, several bars and cafes and a clothing shop to chat.

Crowds were passionate in the nearby town of Saint Dizier, where factories have closed and unemployment is a key concern.
'Francois for president!' fans chanted, pushing and shoving to shake Hollande's hand.
Other chants targeted his chief rival: 'Sarkozy, you're finished!'