THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency was in crisis on Monday as the French Right's historic Senate defeat threatened to torpedo his hopes for re-election.
The French leader was huddling with top allies after the Left defeated his fellow conservatives in historic Senate elections - a rebuff less than seven months before France's presidential election that could put his job in serious danger.
Even Mr Sarkozy's allies were calling from [sic] a new tack from him after the weekend electoral drubbing in which the opposition Socialists gained a thin majority in parliament's upper house.
The presidential palace said Mr Sarkozy conferred at his office Monday with Prime Minister Francois [sic] Fillon and Jean-Francois Cope [sic], the head of the conservative UMP party. Neither man spoke on the way out of the meeting.
Agriculture Minister and UMP platform chief Bruno Le Maire, on Radio Classique, called the election a "serious warning" to governing conservatives.
Mr Sarkozy's supporters were shell-shocked by Sunday's vote, which gave the left a majority the upper house for the first time in French history, and the week promised more revelations in an ongoing party-funding scandal.
"The moment of truth will come next spring. The battle begins tonight," Mr Fillon said in a statement late Sunday after the results became known. » | Monday, September 26, 2011
