Sarkozy woos far-right voters in his battle to retain power

Polls show centre-right leader Mr Sarkozy on course to become the first French president to lose a bid for re-election in more than 30 years. He trails Socialist challenger Francois Hollande ahead of a 6 May run-off.

Mr Hollande pipped the incumbent in Sunday’s ten-candidate first round by 28.6 per cent to 27.2 per cent, but National Front leader Marine Le Pen stole the show, surging to 17.9 per cent, the biggest tally a far-right candidate has managed.

Her performance mirrored advances across the continent by anti-establishment Eurosceptical populists from Amsterdam and Vienna to Helsinki and Athens, as the eurozone’s debt crisis deepens anger over government cuts and unemployment.

“National Front voters must be respected,” Mr Sarkozy told reporters as he left his campaign headquarters in Paris. “They voiced their view. It was a vote of suffering, a crisis vote. Why insult them? I have heard Mr Hollande criticising them.”

The unpopular Mr Sarkozy, the first sitting president to be forced into second place in the first round of a re-election bid, now faces a difficult balancing act to attract both the far-right and centrist voters he needs to stay in office.

Returning to the campaign trail yesterday, he hammered home promises to toughen border controls, tighten security on the streets and keep industrial jobs in France – signature issues for Ms Le Pen at a time of anger over immigration, violent crime and unemployment running at a 12-year high.

Mr Hollande has vowed to change the direction of Europe by tempering austerity measures with higher taxes on the rich and more social spending. Polls published on Sunday predicted he would win the run-off, with between 53 and 56 per cent of votes.

But the strong showing of Ms Le Pen offered Mr Sarkozy a glimmer of hope by suggesting there are more votes up for grabs on the right than had been thought. “Le Pen’s breakthrough throws second round wide open,” said the right-leaning Le Figaro, while left-wing Liberation read: “Hollande leads. Le Pen the killjoy”.

Mr Hollande blamed Mr Sarkozy for fuelling the rise in the far right and said he would make no attempt to seek National Front votes. “Since some voters supported them out of anger, I will listen to them…but I will not court the far right,” he said.

On a turnout of 80.2 per cent, more than a third of voters cast ballots for candidates outside the mainstream, foreshadowing a possible reshaping of France’s political balance of power at parliamentary elections in June.

The hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, who polls showed at one stage challenging Ms Le Pen for third place, finished a distant fourth on 11.1 per cent, ahead of centrist Francois Bayrou with 9.1 per cent. Ms Le Pen’s focus is now on securing a strong National Front showing in the parliamentary vote, and she is keeping her distance from Mr Sarkozy, describing him as doomed.

She said she would give her view on the run-off at a May Day rally in Paris next week. Leading National Front figures, including her partner and party vice-president Louis Aliot, suggested she would not formally endorse either candidate.

It is not the first time Mr Sarkozy has appealed to National Front voters before a run-off – the tactic helped him win his first mandate in 2007. Ms Le Pen’s strategy director, Florian Philippot, said it would not work twice. “The French no longer fall for this electioneering game Sarkozy plays,” he said.

Mr Sarkozy has challenged his rival to three television debates over the next two weeks instead of the customary one. But Socialist aides said Mr Hollande would accept only one prime-time live debate, on 2 May.