Sarkozy awaits local election results
France went to the polls today to elect new local governments in a vote seen by many as a referendum on President Nicolas Sarkozy’s past two and a half years in power.
Leftists were riding high into the elections, which look likely to end in a setback for Sarkozy’s conservatives, blamed by many voters for failing to protect their jobs amid the economic downturn.
France’s struggle to integrate its millions of Muslims has also come to the fore in the campaign for 1,880 seats on regional governments in mainland France and in overseas regions from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean.
Abstention looked likely to be high, with polls last week predicting only about one in two of the country’s 45 million eligible voters will cast a ballot.
