PARIS - France's local elections usually focus on issues like garbage pickups, nursery schools and neighborhood parks. But this year's vote stars President Nicolas Sarkozy.
His plunging popularity exposed his conservative party to a sobering score in the first round Sunday and could lead to a rout in next weekend's runoff vote.
On Monday, Sarkozy's conservative UMP party, desperate for votes, called on centrists to join forces with his allies against Socialist rivals. The Socialists took a lead in the first round and threaten a sweep across France on Sunday -- a scenario that could hamstring Sarkozy's promise to reform France.
Former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, vice president of the governing UMP, said the place of the centrist party Modem was in Sarkozy's camp. He appealed to them not to become a "wall hostile to reform, a wall of immobility ... that will put the brakes on the needed changes in France."
The president's superstar status has faded in recent weeks, tarnished by angry public outbursts and a high profile divorce quickly followed by a courtship and remarriage to model Carla Bruni. That has cast a shadow over UMP's candidates, some of whom stripped the party logo from their campaign materials.
With more than 96 per cent of ballots counted, candidates from Sarkozy's UMP party and its allies had 44.5 per cent of the nationwide vote compared to 49 per cent for the Socialists and their allies, according to Interior Ministry figures.
Voters are choosing mayors and other local leaders in more than 36,000 French towns and cities.
The conservatives won the last municipal voting in 2001 -- but lost the crown jewel, Paris. The capital is expected to remain in the Socialist camp under Mayor Bertrand Delanoe.
Socialists retained Lyon in an outright first-round victory Sunday. Sarkozy's party would lose considerable credibility and important power bases should France's two other major cities, Toulouse and Marseille, slip away in the final round.
The political landscape has changed since 2001, with Francois Bayrou's centrist Modem party becoming the kingmaker in place of the extreme-right National Front, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Sarkozy broke the back of the far-right party by luring its voters in the May presidential elections with a program heavy on security, patriotism and measures to contain the immigration flux.
Bayrou has issued no voting instructions for the second round, and Modem could also make deals with the left.
Bayrou's former party, the centrist UDF, traditionally allied itself with the conservative UMP party. But since forming his new Modem party in the aftermath of his third-place finish in the last year's presidential race, Bayrou has frequently criticized Sarkozy.
He has spoken out against the French leader's economic policies and accused him of cozying up to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who visited France last December.
On Tuesday, Sarkozy planned a visit to the Mediterranean port city of Toulon with Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux for meetings on the fight against illegal immigration -- well-timed to appeal to voters in the southeast where immigration is a major issue.
