France goes to the polls in presidential election:
Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande are expected to beat eight other candidates in first round to face each other in runoff
France has started voting in the first round of its presidential election, with Nicolas Sarkozy at risk of becoming the country's first president to be voted out of office in more than 30 years.
Sarkozy and his Socialist party rival, François Hollande, are expected to beat eight other candidates to go through to a runoff on 6 May, where polls give Hollande a double-digit lead.
Hollande, 57, promises less drastic spending cuts than Sarkozy and wants higher taxes on the wealthy, in particular a 75% tax rate on income above €1m (£820,000), to fund state-aided job creation.
He would become France's first leftwing president since François Mitterand, who beat the incumbent Valery Giscard-d'Estaing in 1981.
Sarkozy, also 57, says he is a safer pair of hands on the economy, but many of the workers and young voters drawn to his 2007 pledge of more pay for more work are deserting him as unemployment hits its highest level in 12 years. Many French people also express distaste for what they see as his flashy style.
Sarkozy's handling of shootings in south-west France in March saw him claw back some ground in opinion polls, but he has since slipped back, leaving Hollande 10 or more points ahead in surveys for the runoff.
Hollande is a whisker ahead for the first round, with an average 28% support in polls to Sarkozy's 27%. Both are far ahead of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, in third place with 16%, the radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon with 14% and the centrist François Bayrou with 10%.
Polls open at 8am local time in mainland France and will close at 6pm, staying open an extra two hours in big cities.
France has started voting in the first round of its presidential election, with Nicolas Sarkozy at risk of becoming the country's first president to be voted out of office in more than 30 years.
Sarkozy and his Socialist party rival, François Hollande, are expected to beat eight other candidates to go through to a runoff on 6 May, where polls give Hollande a double-digit lead.
Hollande, 57, promises less drastic spending cuts than Sarkozy and wants higher taxes on the wealthy, in particular a 75% tax rate on income above €1m (£820,000), to fund state-aided job creation.
He would become France's first leftwing president since François Mitterand, who beat the incumbent Valery Giscard-d'Estaing in 1981.
Sarkozy, also 57, says he is a safer pair of hands on the economy, but many of the workers and young voters drawn to his 2007 pledge of more pay for more work are deserting him as unemployment hits its highest level in 12 years. Many French people also express distaste for what they see as his flashy style.
Sarkozy's handling of shootings in south-west France in March saw him claw back some ground in opinion polls, but he has since slipped back, leaving Hollande 10 or more points ahead in surveys for the runoff.
Hollande is a whisker ahead for the first round, with an average 28% support in polls to Sarkozy's 27%. Both are far ahead of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, in third place with 16%, the radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon with 14% and the centrist François Bayrou with 10%.
Polls open at 8am local time in mainland France and will close at 6pm, staying open an extra two hours in big cities.
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Comments