Sarkozy Retooling After Setback at the Polls
By Katrin Bennhold of the International Herald Tribune
Published: March 16, 2008
PARIS: President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to press ahead with reforms but tone down his flashy image in a bid to restore his popularity with low-income voters after his center-right party suffered a setback in local elections Sunday, officials close to his office said.
The opposition Socialist Party and its allies won 49.5 percent of the vote in the final round of elections Sunday, compared with the 47.5 obtained by the president's Union for a Popular Movement and parties affiliated with it, according to a voting-day telephone poll by the CSA institute.
Most of the 21 ministers who ran in municipal elections looked set to win and the president's camp also appeared on course to keep control of Marseille, France's second-biggest city, and one of the most closely watched races of the election. But the Socialists took several hotly contested urban fiefs from the right, including Toulouse and Strasbourg, and retained control of Paris and Lyon. The education minister, Xavier Darcos, and the junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, were among those in the cabinet who lost their bids.
Ségolène Royal, Sarkozy's Socialist rival in the presidential elections last year, called the result a "protest vote" and urged the government to scrap a series of recent tax cuts.
Prime Minister François Fillon struck a defiant tone, vowing to pursue a program of economic change that he said was endorsed by voters in presidential and legislative elections last year. "We are going to continue with these policies because one needs tenacity to reform our country and because the respect of democracy demands that our commitments are fulfilled," Fillon said in a televised address. But privately, officials said that the blow suffered in this first electoral test since Sarkozy took office 10 months ago could mark the beginning of a new phase in his presidency - if not in substance, certainly in style.
to read the entire artice, go to http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/16/europe/france.php
Published: March 16, 2008
PARIS: President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to press ahead with reforms but tone down his flashy image in a bid to restore his popularity with low-income voters after his center-right party suffered a setback in local elections Sunday, officials close to his office said.
The opposition Socialist Party and its allies won 49.5 percent of the vote in the final round of elections Sunday, compared with the 47.5 obtained by the president's Union for a Popular Movement and parties affiliated with it, according to a voting-day telephone poll by the CSA institute.
Most of the 21 ministers who ran in municipal elections looked set to win and the president's camp also appeared on course to keep control of Marseille, France's second-biggest city, and one of the most closely watched races of the election. But the Socialists took several hotly contested urban fiefs from the right, including Toulouse and Strasbourg, and retained control of Paris and Lyon. The education minister, Xavier Darcos, and the junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, were among those in the cabinet who lost their bids.
Ségolène Royal, Sarkozy's Socialist rival in the presidential elections last year, called the result a "protest vote" and urged the government to scrap a series of recent tax cuts.
Prime Minister François Fillon struck a defiant tone, vowing to pursue a program of economic change that he said was endorsed by voters in presidential and legislative elections last year. "We are going to continue with these policies because one needs tenacity to reform our country and because the respect of democracy demands that our commitments are fulfilled," Fillon said in a televised address. But privately, officials said that the blow suffered in this first electoral test since Sarkozy took office 10 months ago could mark the beginning of a new phase in his presidency - if not in substance, certainly in style.
to read the entire artice, go to http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/16/europe/france.php
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