French voters vented their displeasure with President Sarkozy's ten-month-old administration today in the first round of nationwide local elections that showed a solid swing to the Socialist Opposition.

The Left captured Rouen outright and a string of conservative-governed cities, including Marseilles, Toulouse, and Strasbourg, were in danger of falling to Socialist control in next Sunday's run-off.

Socialist leaders called the local voting a blow to the radical conservative President whose popularity has slumped since he won a triumphant election last May. Despite feuds that have racked their party, the Socialists won 47.5 per cent of the overall vote for the country's 36,000 municipal councils, with Mr Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) winning 40 per cent.

Paris and Lyons, the two biggest cities, appeared certain to remain in the hands of the Socialists, who won them in 2001.

A bright spot in an otherwise bleak evening for the Right was the outright election of Alain Juppé, former UMP prime minister, as Mayor of Bordeaux.

Ségolène Royal, the Socialist whom Mr Sarkozy beat to the presidency and who is seeking the party leadership, said: “It is clear that this is a punishment vote that shows disillusion and anger. However François Fillon, the Prime Minister, noted that the leftward shift was not as severe as pollsters had predicted and he appealed to supporters of the UMP to turn out to reverse the slide next Sunday.

Although local issues prevail in the choice of France's 36,000 town and village councils, 21 per cent of voters told pollsters that they aimed to use their ballots to punish Mr Sarkozy, while 10 per cent wanted to support him.

Twenty members of Mr Sarkozy's Government were also standing for election or re-election to council seats in Paris and the provinces. Jean Sarkozy, the President's 21-year-old son, is also entering political life, standing for a département, or county, council seat in Neuilly, the wealthy Paris suburb that Mr Sarkozy governed as mayor for nearly two decades.

Mr Sarkozy, 53, has taken little part in a campaign that is the first test of his administration. Many mayors from the UMP asked him to keep his distance and removed the party emblem from their posters and leaflets.

It was left to the popular and low-key Mr Fillon to head the Government's drive to limit the municipal damage that was inevitable since the UMP made big gains, winning control of 55 percent of cities of more than 30,000 inhabitants in the last local votes in 2001.

The Government's main advantage is the lack of a coherent national opposition. The Socialist Party, its main component, has been effectively leaderless and buried in internal strife since Mr Sarkozy defeated Ms Royal for the presidency.

Ms Royal, who is president of the western Poitou-Charentes region, has used the local campaigning to forge an image as the dominant Socialist personality. She is among half a dozen vying for the succession to François Hollande, the lame-duck party chief and Ms Royal's former partner, who is leaving his post in the autumn.

Her main rival for the leadership is expected to be Bertrand Delanoë, the popular Mayor of Paris, who is ensured re-election to a second term at the capital's city hall.

Mr Sarkozy's entourage has made clear that the President aims to open a “Chapter Two” in his presidency in the aftermath of the local voting. Patrick Devedjian, co-leader of the UMP, has talked of a new “classical” style at the Elysée Palace after what he called the “baroque period” of Mr Sarkozy's early presidency.

“Super-Sarko” said last week that nothing would divert him from his pledges to jolt France out of its sleepier ways. He has only just begun with his reforms, he said. But he also acknowledged that he had made mistakes and intended to adopt a more subdued style.

The President's approval ratings have slumped to the mid 30s after a high of nearly 70 per cent last summer, largely as a result of displeasure over his very public two-month courtship of Carla Bruni, the Italian supemodel whom he married last month.

Ms Bruni did not vote today because she had not registered. As an Italian citizen, she was entitled to. One of the first signs of Mr Sarkozy's martical troubles last May was the failure of Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz, his wife at the time, to vote in the presidential run-off.

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