Reuters The French left's sweeping victory in Senate elections at the weekend does not mean the presidency is in the bag for the opposition Socialists, but it weakens President Nicolas Sarkozy seven months before the 2012 election. The swing left in Sunday's vote by local councillors, handing the Socialist Party 177 seats out of 348 and its first upper house majority in half a century, is the result of an anti-Sarkozy backlash in successive local elections in past months. Trailing the left in polls and under pressure from economic gloom and a corruption probe that has netted close aides, Sarkozy has enough political wile to recover in time for the 2012 election, yet the battle ahead looks tougher than ever. “This clearly weakens Sarkozy. He was working to try and win back public opinion and this has undermined any progress there. It will handicap him,” said analyst Francois Miquet-Marty at Viavoice pollsters. “It raises doubts over whether he should even be the UMP's candidate next year.” Although a left-wing Senate does not have the power to overrule legislation, it was a slap in the face for Sarkozy's UMP party to lose its upper hand in what has been a bastion of the right since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958. The Socialists, due to pick a presidential candidate in October from a field of six contenders, called Sunday's result a step towards victory in 2012 after three terms in opposition. It was a triumph for a party still bruised from losing its erstwhile star Dominique Strauss-Kahn over a sex scandal. “It's like a first act, a dress rehearsal for victory in 2012,” Socialist Party head Harlem Desir told iTele TV. Francois Hollande, the favorite to run for the left next year, called the Senate result “historic.” For Sarkozy, the blow came the same week his office felt obliged to deny he had anything to do with the “Karachi Affair,” a scandal involving political kickbacks in the 1990s that is inching closer to him by the day. Sarkozy is due for another dent to morale next Sunday when senators elect a new upper house president, most likely to be the head of the Socialist bloc in the chamber, Jean-Pierre Bel. “He had been discredited economically and socially with the crisis, then discredited morally with the Karachi Affair and now he has been discredited politically with the Senate result,” said Miquet-Marty. Opinion polls show the left would defeat Sarkozy in a presidential election today, due largely to gloom over the economy that is so entrenched even Sarkozy's high-profile victory helping Libya overthrow Muammar Gaddafi has barely helped his ratings. Indeed, economic issues could do much to shift the stakes between now and the two-round election on April 22 and May 6, analysts say, with much riding on whether euro zone leaders can resolve a spiraling debt crisis that threatens more pain. Political sources say Sarkozy is trying to keep his head down while honing his image as international statesman, like with his speech on the Palestinian issue at the UN General Assembly, and praying for an economic upturn early next year. “The Senate result gives an indication of the resentment against the government and the desire for change, but it's too soon to say how things will play out for 2012,” said Fourquet. __
