President Nicolas Sarkozy's popularity slid back toward record lows this month, according to a poll on Tuesday which showed him distantly trailing Socialist rivals for next year's election, Reuters reported. The survey by pollster BVA showed Sarkozy, whose centre-right coalition lost control of the Senate in elections on Sunday, slipping to 32 percent approval rating, down five percentage points from the previous survey in June and close to spring's record lows. With two weeks until the first round of the opposition Socialists' presidential primary, former party leader Francois Hollande retained his standing as its most popular candidate. Hollande slipped by one percentage point to 51 percent. His closest rival, current party secretary Martine Aubry, slipped by three percentage points to 46 percent. The telephone survey of 956 people of voting age was conducted on Sept. 23-24. Sunday's sweeping defeat for Sarkozy in the Senatorial elections marked the first time in 50 years the right has lost control of the upper house of parliament. The president told legislators from his UMP party on Tuesday the defeat was due in large part to ruptures within his centre-right coalition and he planned to concentrate on the euro zone crisis in the coming months rather than entering campaign mode, participants said.
