CAMPAIGNING ENDS FOR FRENCH ELECTION, SARKOZY DUE FOR NEW WIN

- Campaigning drew to a close Saturday for the second round of France's parliamentary election, which is expected to deliver an overwhelming majority for President Nicolas Sarkozy and his ambitious programme of reform.

A month after Sarkozy's election victory over the Socialist Segolene Royal, the country is returning to the polls to choose a new National Assembly whose five-year mandate will run concurrently with the new president's.

On Sunday some 37 million voters will decide between 933 candidates in the 467 constituencies where deputies were not returned in the first round of voting on June 10.

Campaigning on the broadcast media ended at midnight Friday -- along with a ban on publishing new opinion polls -- but candidates could continue canvassing on the street Saturday.

Opinion polls all predict a clear victory for Sarkozy's Union For a Popular Movement (UMP) over a Socialist Party (PS) that is still reeling from Royal's presidential defeat.

According to the TNS Sofres polling agency, the UMP and its allies the New Centre can expect between 405 and 435 seats in the 577-member Assembly, with the PS getting between 125 and 149.

As the UMP already controls the lower house of parliament, it would be the first time since 1978 that a ruling party has been given a renewed majority -- a sign that Sarkozy's promise of radical change from the policies of past governments is widely accepted.

The biggest losers in the election are likely to be the small parties, as the new Assembly looks set to be dominated by the UMP-PS divide.

The Communist Party (PC), once France's largest, is set to lose several of its current 21 seats and will not have enough to form a parliamentary bloc. The Greens will have three at most, and the far-right National Front once again none, according to polls.

The third-placed presidential candidate Francois Bayrou also looks set to lose the gamble he took when he created a new centre party Modem last month and broke with Sarkozy's UMP. He may well be the only Modem deputy to win a seat.

With its leadership openly bickering over responsibility for the presidential defeat, the PS is resigned to a new period in opposition and has done little more than warn of the dangers of a too large UMP majority.

However in the last days of the campaign it had a new burst of energy, seizing on the government's decision to study an increase in sales tax as a way of paying for the social security system.

"Now we know who will bear the burden of Nicolas Sarkozy's promised tax cuts," party leader Francois Hollande -- who is also Royal's partner -- said, warning that sales tax will increase to 24.5 percent.

"June 17 is the last electoral rendez-vous for five years. After that there is only the politics of the right, with all its brutality, indifference and injustice," he said.

But Prime Minister Francois Fillon -- a close ally of Sarkozy -- urged voters to give the UMP as large a majority as possible in order to provide momentum for its reform programme.

And he accused the PS of failing to offer any alternative policies to the UMP's. "Of the party of the rose there is nothing left but the thorns," he said.

Sarkozy has promised to convene a special session of the National Assembly next month to push through a first raft of reforms.

These include a crime law clamping down on repeat offenders; a law to provide guaranteed service in transport strikes; greater autonomy for universities; and a far-reaching tax reform including the key measure ending tax and social charges on overtime

from The Tocqueville Connection :

SARKOZY PARTY HEADED FOR LANDSLIDE IN FRENCH PARLIAMENT

- French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightwing party was headed for a landslide victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections that will give him free rein to push through his bold reform programme.

A month after Sarkozy defeated the Socialist Segolene Royal in the presidential election, his ruling UMP party and its allies were set to take between 420 and 463 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, according to the latest opinion poll.

The Socialists and their allies will get between 95 and 130 seats in Sunday’s second round of voting, said the CSA-Cisco poll in Friday’s Le Parisien newspaper.

Sarkozy, who took over from Jacques Chirac, plans to present a first raft of bills this summer to give universities more autonomy, tighten immigration, make labour laws more flexible and slash taxes.

He has already broken new ground by appointing the prominent Socialist Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister and Rachida Dati, a woman of north African origin, as justice minister.

Opinion polls show that a majority of French approve of his performance so far.

The opposition Socialists, in disarray after their third consecutive presidential defeat and their poor showing in the first round of voting last Sunday, have focussed their campaign on warning of an over-concentration of power if Sarkozy’s party dominates parliament.

Deeply divided, the party suffered a further setback when centrist leader Francois Bayrou this week rejected Royal’s offer of negotiations on forming an alliance to limit their losses in the second round.

Royal’s overture to Bayrou also prompted a public spat with party leader Francois Hollande, her partner, whose opposition to an alliance was backed up in a vote by the party’s top decision-making body.

The bitterest debate in the campaign this week was over the government’s mooted plans to switch the financing of health care from payroll charges to higher sales taxes.

The Socialists accused Prime Minister Francois Fillon of aiming to finance tax breaks for the rich with money from ordinary workers.

Fillon retorted at an electoral rally in Paris late Thursday that the left “prefers to sacrifice the (nation’s) general interest, rather than sacrifice a partisan position,” because leading Socialists had earlier appeared to back a similar sales tax plan.

Sarkozy issued a statement late Thursday saying he would reject the sales tax hike if it reduced the purchasing power of French consumers.

The Communists, once France’s biggest party, look set to fall from 21 seats to between 10 and 15 seats after Sunday’s vote, according to the CSA-Cisco poll.

The new centre party Modem of third-placed presidential candidate Francois Bayrou can expect three at most, with a similar score for the Greens.

Due to the particularities of the voting system, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front is expected, as usual, to win no seats despite having garnered 10 percent of the vote in the May presidential election.

Participation in last Sunday’s vote was a record low at 60.5 percent, indicating the widespread feeling that last month’s presidential election was the more important democratic moment.

The UMP had 359 seats in the outgoing parliament while the Socialists had 149 deputies.

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