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PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy's party took a severe drubbing from French voters Sunday in nationwide regional elections that were his last big national test before he seeks re-election in 2012.
As polling stations closed, initial estimates gave Socialist-led opposition electoral alliances some 54 percent of the vote, Sarkozy's right-wing UMP 36 percent and the far-right National Front just under nine percent.
"Tonight's result confirms the success of the left's lists. We have not been convincing," admitted UMP Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
"This is a disappointment for the governing party. I take my share of responsibility, and tomorrow morning I'll take this us with the president."
Before the vote, a report in the pro-government daily Le Figaro said that Fillon will offer his government's resignation on Monday but that Sarkozy would ask him to form a new, slightly modified Cabinet.
If confirmed, the estimates -- based on samples of cast ballots by polling agencies -- leave Sarkozy's supporters in control of only one of France's 22 mainland regions, their right-wing stronghold of Alsace.
Meanwhile the left, dominated by the Socialist Party, appeared to have held onto the mainland, the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe and French Guyana and to have won a tight race to wrest Corsica from the UMP.
The UMP's sole consolation was in taking the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, in a vote to elect the regional councils that are in charge of transport, education and cultural policy.
"The French have expressed their rejection of the politics of the president and the government," Socialist party leader Martine Aubry said, calling on the left to unite behind a programme to retake power at a national level.
Turnout was low, although around four percent higher than in last week's first round. Polling agencies TNS-Sofres and OpinionWay separately predicted that the second round abstention rate would be 49 percent.
Last week's first-round vote saw the French leader's right-wing supporters win their lowest share of the vote in more than three decades. The party's final score was higher but still low enough to constitute a stark defeat.
Sarkozy, who still has a comfortable majority in the national parliament, has insisted that the regional poll is not a verdict on central government, but he is expected to order a reshuffle in the next few days.
The result was another blow to a president whose personal approval ratings are at an all-time low and will likely increase pressure within his own party for a change of direction.
Fillon said the result showed French voters felt threatened by the global economic crisis, but insisted Sarkozy's economic reforms are not to blame.
"The French are right. 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," he said in a brief televised address.
Any new ministerial line-up may offer clues as to whether Sarkozy plans to slow down or alter his reform programme. He has spoken of a possible "pause" once he raises the retirement age and reforms some state sector pensions.
"Many of the political strategies of the coming years will be based on this, the last election" before Sarkozy seeks re-election in the presidential vote in 2012, said Pascal Perrineau of the elite Sciences-Po school in Paris.
"He has to reconnect with a part of the popular vote that supported him in 2007. He has to send them signals on unemployment and on the cost of living for the working class," Perrineau told AFP before the vote.
Meanwhile, the Socialists are expected to try to use the vote as a springboard to reunite their divided party in time to mount a credible challenge to Sarkozy's re-election hopes in 2012.
"This result gives us our breath back, gives us a chance to accelerate the battle," defeated 2007 Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal told supporters after winning her region with 60 percent of the vote.
- AFP/ir
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