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President Sarkozy has sealed his command of the French State for the next five years after voters yesterday gave his centre-right party a majority in parliament. The opposition Socialist Party made a surprisingly strong comeback after its first-round rout on May 6.

In the final bout of a two-month electoral season, Mr Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement and its allies won about 350 of the 577 seats. In the outgoing National Assembly they held 359.

Left-wing voters heeded alarm calls from the Socialist Party after the “blue tidal wave” towards the UMP in last Sunday’s first round and raised its seats from 149 to more than 200. The Socialists spent the second-round campaign week fanning fears that François Fillon, the Prime Minister, was aiming to raise value added tax by two percentage points. The Communist Party, which had seemed destined for extinction, managed to save about half of its 21 seats.

The chief single victim of the swing back to the left was Alain Juppé, the Deputy Prime Minister, who was defeated in Bordeaux and resigned from the Government after one month as head of a new superministry of the Environment, Transport and Sustainable Development. Mr Juppé, a former Prime Minister and current Mayor of Bordeaux, was a long-serving lieutenant to Jacques Chirac, the last President. He returned to politics last year after receiving a six-month suspended prison sentence for corruption while he was deputy to Mr Chirac, then Mayor of Paris .

The absolute majority for the UMP and its new centre-party allies means that Mr Sarkozy has a clear mandate to push through his plans for jolting France out of its malaise.

Mr Fillon said that his Government would waste no time in using its majority to combat the “defeatism” which he said was suffocating France. “France is equipped with a majority to act,” he said.”

However, the revival of the Socialists from what seemed to be the edge of the electoral grave points to unhappiness among many over the President’s radical plans for revamping the tax system to favour business and higher-earners.

This was the first time in three decades in which voters have returned the ruling party to parliamentary power. Mr Sarkozy, 52, managed to deprive the Socialists of their expected turn in office by convincing France that he, not they, could offer the clean break after 12 years under Mr Chirac, his boss. The Socialists, led by Ségolène Royal to presidential defeat last month, were partially saved by hostility to Mr Fillon’s plans for a “social VAT”, which emerged after the first round. The Government is considering raising VAT to finance cuts in payroll taxes designed to give a boost to business.

While Mr Sarkozy’s ministers hailed their clear majority, the Socialists were in near-triumphant mood. François Hollande, the party leader, said: “The blue wave that they promised us did not happen.” He thanked voters for giving the party 25 per cent more seats than in the last election. “Voters intended to create a counter force to balance the power of the Government,” he said.

The episode of social VAT was the first sign that the new President’s extraordinary honeymoon with the public is reaching the end. Mr Sarkozy has called a special session of the new parliament for June 26 to begin passing his reforms, including loosening the 35-hour work week, guaranteeing minimum service during public transport strikes and clamping down on lawbreakers and illegal immigration.

He is also expected to reach out to members of the centrist and opposition camp when he appoints about a dozen new junior ministers in a small reshuffle of his month-old Government this week.

The future remains bleak for the Socialists. After losing three presidential elections in a row and destined for another five years in opposition, they are heading for a bout of blood-letting and recrimination.

Ms Royal, who won 47 per cent of the presidential vote, is trying to take over a party that has been run for the past decade by François Hollande, her domestic partner. Ms Royal remains popular with left-wing voters but is disliked by many senior figures in the party. They fault her for an incompetent campaign that blew the party’s best chance of winning presidential power since 1988.

A consensus has emerged inside and outside the party that it can no longer patch over the split between reformers and old leftwingers. A group of reformers in their thirties and forties say it is time for new blood.

Poll figures

UMP 314
Other right-wing parties 32
Right-wing total 346
Democratic Movement 3
Socialists 185
Communist party 15
Green party 4
Other left-wing parties 22
Left-wing total 226
Others 2
Overall total 577
Votes cast 21.1 million
Turnout 60 per cent

Voting figures

44.5m registered voters
85% turnout for last month's presidential election
61% turnout in the parliamentary elections
9 parties gained more than 1 per cent of the vote in the first round, when 213,000 voted for the Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Traditions party

Source: Agencies

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