Published: April 22, 2012 at 12:35 PM ET
In a contest driven as much by a dislike of his showy style and failure
to create jobs as by policy differences, Sarkozy and Socialist rival
Francois Hollande are poised to beat eight other candidates to reach a
May 6 runoff, where polls give Hollande a double-digit lead.
Hollande, 57, promises less drastic spending cuts than Sarkozy and wants
higher taxes on the wealthy to fund state-aided job creation, in
particular a 75 percent upper tax rate on income above 1 million euros
($1.32 million).
He would be only France's second left-wing leader since the founding of
the Fifth Republic in 1958, and its first since Francois Mitterrand, who
beat incumbent Valery Giscard-d'Estaing in 1981 and ruled until 1995.
"France needs a radical change of direction, mainly on the economy,"
said Jean-Noel Harvet, a public sector worker in the northern town of
Cambrai, where hundreds queued to cast their vote at the town hall.
Polls close at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) in some towns and nationwide at 8 p.m.,
when the first official projections of the result based on a partial
count will be released.
Hollande voted early on Sunday in Tulle, a town in central France where
he serves as the head of local government for the surrounding rural
Correze region.
"Here's hoping," he whispered in the ear of an old lady. His partner,
journalist Valerie Trierweiler, admitted to reporters she was
"super-stressed".
Pre-election surveys predicting low turnout were not borne out: 70.6
percent of the electorate had voted by 5 p.m., the interior ministry
said, just below the 73.9 percent recorded at the same point in the 2007
election, which was the highest in two decades.
Hollande has called on his supporters to take nothing for granted,
mindful of a fiasco for the left in 2002 when record low turnout saw the
Socialist candidate pushed out in the first round by the far right.
Sarkozy, also 57, says he is a safer pair of hands for future economic
turmoil. But many of the workers and young voters drawn to his 2007
pledge of more pay for more work are deserting him as jobless claims hit
a 12 year high.
He and first lady Carla Bruni, who was somberly-dressed but smiling,
voted in an affluent Paris district, shaking hands with bystanders but
leaving without comment.
Claire Berthemet, a counselor for handicapped children voting in the
northern town of Cambrai, said she would vote for Sarkozy because of his
experience during the economic turmoil. "He kept our head above the
water during the crisis," she said.
But many French people express a distaste for a president who has come
to be seen as flashy after his highly publicized marriage to
ex-supermodel Bruni early in his term, occasional rude outbursts in
public and chumminess with rich executives.
"Sarkozy's divisive. Hollande's reassuring," said Helene Boudot, 85, who
was glad to have been released from a hospital stay in time to vote in
her village of Chailland in western France. She was counting on her son
to drive her 100 meters to the local polling station.
EYES ON THIRD PLACE
Investors will be watching to see how well tub-thumbing radical leftist
Jean-Luc Melenchon performs. Melenchon, who wants an anti-capitalist
revolution, has channeled outrage over the economy to become a popular
figure on the campaign trail, vying with far-right leader Marine Le Pen
for third place.
Before election weekend the risk premium investors charge to hold French
debt over safe-haven German bonds rose to nearly 1.50 percent,
betraying fears that Hollande's program could be pulled leftwards if
Melenchon's popularity leads to a strong bloc for the far left after
parliamentary elections in June.
Sarkozy has proven to be a more vigorous campaigner than Hollande, whose sober style, for some, lacks panache.
The president's verve at the podium combined with his handling of a
shooting drama in southwest France in March saw him claw back some
ground in opinion polls last month. But he has since slipped back,
leaving Hollande 10 or more points ahead in surveys for the deciding
runoff.
Latest opinion polls put Hollande a whisker ahead for the first round,
with an average 28 percent support to Sarkozy's 27 percent. Le Pen, who
wants to curb immigration and leave the euro, has polled at around 16 percent and Melenchon at 14.
Around half a million expatriate French are expected to vote, up from
some 350,000 in the 2007 election. Surveys show them shifting to the
left.
"Even though we live abroad we still care about our country and it's not
in a good state," said Stephanie, who queued up for over an hour with
her two children to vote in London.
Pascale, a mother of three, voted for Melenchon at the French consulate
in Athens. "The crisis made me think about the role of politics, banks
and finance," she said. "In this period of crisis, I voted further
left."
French law bans publication of any results in France before polls close,
and the polling watchdog has threatened to punish any media breaking
that embargo with fines and legal action.
During the last election, French voters hungry for information crashed
the websites of several Swiss and Belgian newspapers.
France is struggling with weak economic growth, a gaping trade deficit,
10 percent unemployment and strained public finances that prompted
ratings agency Standard & Poor's to cut the country's triple-A
credit rating in January.
Sarkozy has played up his credibility as an economic steward after he
helped steer the euro zone through the worst of its crisis last year.
Hollande has blamed him for the parlous state of France's public
finances and for the rating downgrade.
Some investors see a risk that Hollande's focus on tax rises over
spending cuts, his slower timetable for balancing the budget and his
plan to raise taxation on the financial sector, could drive up French
bond yields. ($1 = 0.7571 euros)
(Additional reporting by Brian Love, Daniel Flynn and Catherine Bremer
in Paris, Estelle Shirbon in London and Ingrid Melander in Athens;
Editing by Peter Graff and Philippa Fletcher)
(This story was corrected to fix where Sarkozy voted to Paris in paragraph 12)
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