French presidential voting launched

PanARMENIAN.Net - French voters headed to the polls on Sunday, April 22 in round one of a presidential ballot, with Nicolas Sarkozy and his Socialist rival Francois Hollande pegged to beat eight other candidates to go through to a May 6 runoff, where polls give Hollande a double-digit lead,Reuters reported.

Hollande, 57, promises less drastic spending cuts than Sarkozy and wants higher taxes on the wealthy to fund state-aided job creation, in particular a 75 percent upper tax rate on incomeabove 1 million euros ($1.32 million).

He would be only France's second left-wing leader since the founding of the Fifth Republic in1958, and its first since Francois Mitterrand, who beat incumbent Valery Giscard-d'Estaing in1981.

He voted early on Sunday in Tulle, a town in central France where he serves as the head of local government for the surrounding rural Correze region.

Bright spring sunshine across much of the country may help turnout. Hollande has called on his supporters to take nothing for granted, mindful of a fiasco for the left in 2002 when record poor countrywide turnout saw the Socialist candidate pushed out in the first round by the far right.

Interior ministry figures put the turnout by midday at 28.29, percent a touch lower than thestrong turnout of 2007, when the rate at the same time of day was 31.21 percent.

Sarkozy, also 57, says he is a safer pair of hands for future economic turmoil. But many of theworkers and young voters drawn to his 2007 pledge of more pay for more work are desertinghim as jobless claims hit a 12 year high.

Polls close at 6 p.m. in some towns and at 8 p.m. everywhere, when the first official projectionsof the result based on a partial count will be released. French law bans publication of any results before then in France, and the polling watchdog has threatened to punish any media breaking that embargo with fines and legal action.

France is struggling with weak economic growth, a gaping trade deficit, 10 percent unemployment and strained public finances that prompted ratings agency Standard & Poor's tocut the country's triple-A credit rating in January.