Sarkozy and Royal go through as 84 per cent turnout sets new poll record

A democratic tidal wave swept France yesterday. A record turn-out of 84.5 per cent of registered voters in the first round of the presidential election propelled Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal into a fascinating - and possibly close - second round showdown in two weeks' time.

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The triumph of the centre-right candidate, M. Sarkozy, who took a projected 30 per cent of the vote, was broadly expected. The success of Mme Royal - who scored an estimated 25.2 per cent, one of the highest scores of any Socialist contender in the history of the Fifth Republic - was much more startling.

Mme Royal confounded her critics, including many in her own camp. She became the first woman to reach the second round of a French presidential election. It remains to be seen whether her score will be high enough to give her the momentum she needs to overhaul M. Sarkozy in the final on 6 May.

The one-on-one televised debates, expected between "Sarko" and "Ségo" in the next few days, could be decisive. Despite his high score yesterday, there is a strong anti-Sarkozy mood on the left and centre of the electorate.

The centrist, François Bayrou, fell short with a projected 18.3 per cent of the vote but may turn out to be the potential king-maker - or queen-maker.

The veteran far-right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, received a stinging rebuff with only 11.5 per cent, compared to 16.8 per cent when he startled the world by reaching the second round in 2002. This is the first time in 33 years that his percentage of the presidential vote has retreated.

At the age of 78, M. Le Pen's 30-year career as a xenophobic conduit for all France's social and economic ills is now dead - or may be on life support until he finds a successor.

Mme Royal's partner, François Hollande - also leader of the Socialist Party - said France now faced a clear choice between Mme Royal, the "candidate of change" and M. Sarkozy, the candidate of the existing centre-right government. The former Socialist education minister, Jack Lang, said the result was a "personal triumph" for Mme Royal.

Addressing a cheering crowd at his Paris headquarters, M. Sarkozy called for a "dignified" debate of ideas in the second round, between "two conceptions of society, two sets of values". He said he wanted to "unite the French people" behind a "New French dream", in which the weak would be helped but enterprise would be encouraged.

He said that he "respected" Mme Royal and her ideas and urged her to avoid personal attacks, which would not be worthy of "the victory for democracy" represented by yesterday's record turn-out.

France has - for the time being at any rate - turned away from the cul-de-sacs of the extreme right and the extreme left. M. Bayrou's critics would say that the country has also rejected the cul-de-sac of an attractive but potentially immobile "extreme centre". By the sheer size of the voting electorate, the French people sent a loud message that they were prepared to give another chance to the country's much-battered, mainstream political system. This was a vote for democracy and a vote for moderation, as much as it was a vote for any would-be president or presidente.

The calamitous result of 2002 - M. Le Pen in the second round; six out of 10 voters supporting candidates of the extremes - was spawned by a national mood of rejection of the whole process. M. Le Pen reached the final last time because many hundreds of thousands of people failed to vote and left-wing electors scattered their votes over minor and extreme candidates.

Yesterday, France turned out to vote in huge, and unprecedented, force, despite the fact that - judging by conversations all over the country in the past few days - no candidate truly excited the nation. The motivating factor - especially in the multi-racial suburbs - was often the desire to vote against someone: especially against M. Sarkozy; or against M. Le Pen.

By putting M. Sarkozy and Mme Royal in the second round, the French electorate has given the traditional governing "families" of centre-right and centre-left one more chance to prove that they can move the country forward. Both ran campaigns which promised, in different ways, to rebuild a "French model" which has systematically generated low growth, an absurdly small productive work-force and declining living standards for the working class and part of the middle classes.

M. Sarkozy promises lower taxes, lower social charges on business and a drive to expand the size of the French workforce, which is one of the smallest in Europe. (The French work an average of 600 hours a year for every man, woman and child in the country, compared to 800 hours in Britain.) He also promises to be tough on crime, suburban gang violence and immigration. His language on these issues - not so much during the campaign as before it began - explains his image in the multi-racial suburbs as an excitable and authoritarian racist.

M. Sarkozy is no racist but his authoritarian and excitable side also worries many people on the French centre and right.

Mme Royal promises to convert the old French left-wing religion - statist and suspicious of all private enterprise - along Scandinavian, social democratic lines. She talks of a "win-win" politics in which both unions and business would be prepared to make sacrifices if they were assured of medium or long-term gains. Many of her ideas seem extremely vague or dependent on just the kind of state intervention and spending which she says - at other times - she hopes to escape.

How the candidates stand

* NICOLAS SARKOZY

Nicolas Sarkozy's high score in the first round makes him clear favourite to be the next president. However, a strong anti-Sarko mood exists.

The high turnout yesterday is partly explained by the determination of left-wing voters to bar the route to Jean-Marie Le Pen - but also to gather their forces against M. Sarkozy.

Dismissed as a "dwarf" by the Prime Minister, Dominique Villepin, the diminutive M. Sarkozy, 52, has allegedly used dirty tricks to eliminate one rival after another.

Jacques Chirac was stunned by his protégé's impudence when he backed his centre-right rival, Edouard Balladur, as presidential candidate in 1995. The family household was shocked, as "le petit Nicolas" had dated M. Chirac's daughter, Claude. "To think I've seen him in his underpants," Mme Chirac railed.

M. Chirac, who went on to win the presidency against M Balladur, never forgave M. Sarkozy.

* SEGOLENE ROYAL

Ségolène Royal last night became the first woman to reach the second round of a French presidential election. She will claim her achievement as a personal triumph, won against the ill-will, and outright sabotage, of some people within her own party. Her critics will retort that Mme Royal is a very lucky woman who owes her success largely to fear of Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Yesterday the wider French Left decided not to scatter its votes self-defeatingly across minor candidates as it did in 2002. This must partly be a tribute to the determination and courage under fire of Mme Royal. However, yesterday's vote was also driven by a kind of herd instinct on the French left, which was desperate not to face another second-round choice between two candidates of the Right. Mme Royal still has still much to prove to the French people, and televised debates against M. Sarkozy before the second round will be crucial.

* FRANCOIS BAYROU

François Bayrou is both loser and winner. He failed, despite an often brilliant campaign, to reach the second round but may have permanently changed the contours of French politics.

His re-invention of "le sexy centre" was finally rejected. However, French voters - unlike voters elsewhere - love a battle-scarred loser.

M. Bayrou, 55, will be a formidable contender in 2012 if the new president fails to boost France's economy and self-esteem. In the meantime, he will face tricky parliamentary elections in June. Almost all the 30 members of his centrist UDF party in the National Assembly depend for their seats on local, electoral deals with M. Sarkozy's centre-right UMP. Having repudiated M. Sarkozy during the first-round campaign, M. Bayrou will be under pressure to return to the "right wing" family table. On the other hand, his long-term hopes of creating a new political movement in the centre depend on alliances with dissident social democrats on the French left.

* JEAN-MARIE LE PEN

Jean-Marie Le Pen thinks the sooner France's north African immigrants disappear the better. He hates the EU - despite having been elected as an MEP - and describes the euro as "the currency of occupation".

The 78-year-old ultra-right firebrand, who once described the Holocaust as a "detail" of history, was yesterday consigned to the history books after his fifth, and probably final, attempt to win the French presidency. After his shock first-round victory in the 2002 elections, in which he knocked out the Socialist candidate, M. Le Pen's xenophobic rhetoric had been back on display, thanks to the French electoral rules that allow each candidate equal time.

The fight for M. Le Pen's legacy will intensify. Challenger Bruno Mégret broke with him to form his own party in 1998. It remains to be seen whether his feisty daughter Marine will succeed him, or whether the crown will pass to his number two, Bruno Gollnisch.