Paris--A drubbing for France's divided Socialists by the centre-right is a bad omen for President Francois Hollande two years ahead of a presidential election, analysts said Monday, with the far-right also growing in power.
The Socialists lost 28 councils in local elections on Sunday, nearly half of those it controlled, prompting soul-searching on the left and triumph from former president Nicolas Sarkozy's opposition centre-right.
"It's clearly yet another protest vote ... and the situation is becoming very difficult two years out from the presidential election," said Frederic Dabi, from polling institute Ifop.
"The slap," declared Le Parisien daily, under a picture of a glum-looking Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
The right-leaning Le Figaro said the government had "suffered a fourth and humiliating electoral defeat. For the prime minister, it's a tough blow."
The election defeat was all the more embarrassing as the left lost power in the political heartlands of both Hollande and Valls.
Valls, who campaigned hard during the local elections, with bitter attacks on Sarkozy and the far-right, acknowledged the vote was a setback but vowed to continue with his programme of reforms to pep up France's struggling economy.
There will be "new measures to boost private and public investment", said Valls in the immediate aftermath of the defeat.
But already there was sniping from a rebel left-wing faction within the Socialists, which has already defied the government on several issues in recent months.
One rebel, Jerome Guedj, urged a change of course, saying: "Otherwise, tonight will just be a dress rehearsal for what is going to happen to us in 2017," when the next presidential election is held.
"We can't keep driving into the wall, speeding up and beeping our horns," said Aurelie Filippetti, a former minister who lost her job in a cabinet clean-out of rebels.
AFP
