Left crushes Chirac's UMP in regional polls

FRANCE’S left-wing opposition was celebrating last night, after inflicting a crushing defeat on president Jacques Chirac’s ruling conservatives in regional elections, a victory which paves the way for a government reshuffle and raises doubts about the future pace of economic reforms.

Exit polls showed that the Socialist Party and its allies, buoyed by discontent with government cost-cutting, had won about 50 per cent of the votes and control of most of the 26 regional councils.

The centre-right won around 37 per cent and the far-right about 14 per cent of the votes, representing a huge swing of support away from the governing UMP party following a wave of protests and strikes over its reforms.

The government suffered particular humiliation in the Auvergne, where the conservative former president, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, was defeated, and in the western region of Poitou-Charentes, the fiefdom of the prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, which he had governed for 14 years.

His successor, Elisabeth Morin, was heavily defeated by a former Socialist minister, Segolene Royale. "The president of the Republic is the main person responsible," said Jean-Marc Ayrault, the leader of the Socialist deputies in parliament. "This [cost-cutting] policy must be changed. The French have said it clearly."

Mr Raffarin, looking ashen-faced and whose own position is at risk, went on national television to say the government would not abandon reforms intended to cut the public finance deficit in the eurozone’s second largest economy.

"The reforms must continue because they are necessary ... [But] policies must be more efficient and fair, and it is certain that some changes must be made," he said.

Alain Jupp, the head of Mr Chirac’s UMP, added: "We have started, we have sown the seeds. Therefore we must continue to act."

The far-right National Front led by Jean-Marie Le Pen lost votes, scoring 12.5 per cent according to exit polls, down from 15 per cent in 1998.

However, the anti-immigration party still made its presence felt, causing havoc by splitting the mainstream right vote in some 17 regions. Polls showed that at least 60 per cent of voters said that they remained determined to use these second-round elections to send a strong message of discontent to Mr Raffarin’s government.

There is widespread dissatisfaction with France’s steadily rising employment which is hovering around the 10 per cent mark.

Cost-cutting reforms to education, health-care and pensions, have also resulted in the angry backlash against the conservative government, in the first test of its popularity since Mr Chirac’s landslide victory against Mr Le Pen in the presidential elections in 2002.

Yesterday’s results leave Mr Chirac facing a difficult decision over Mr Raffarin’s future. Political observers and media pundits have predicted that a strong defeat will force the president to conduct a major cabinet reshuffle in which the prime minister could lose his job.

One factor may save the beleaguered Mr Raffarin however, and that is the fact that the most obvious candidate to replace him is the highly ambitious and popular interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy, who has made no secret of his desire to succeed Mr Chirac as president.

While Mr Sarkozy, who appears to have the gift of being everywhere at once, campaigned in favour of the UMP in seven "difficult" areas in five days, winning a whispered "Thank goodness we have you" from Mr Chirac’s wife, Bernadette, the president has remained less easily convinced by his rival.