French left takes Senate in blow for Sarkozy

With the final results announced early Monday morning, the Socialist Party and its Communist and Green allies won enough seats to give the left control of the upper house for the first time in French history.

Their total of 177 seats was two more than the 175 they needed for an absolute majority. The Socialists hope it will be a stepping stone towards a presidential win in seven months' time, AFP reported.

The Senate is not chosen by universal suffrage but by a "super-electorate" of elected officials – around 72,000 mayors, local and regional councillors, voting for figures on the basis of regional lists.

The ruling right conceded defeat once it became clear late Sunday that the left had hit the crucial 175-seat mark.

Sarkozy's prime minister, Francois Fillon, admitted the right had suffered from its divisions and that the left had made a "strong breakthrough".

"The moment of truth will come next spring. The battle begins tonight," Fillon said in a statement, calling on the right to unite behind Sarkozy's government in time to turn the tide before the late April vote.

Sarkozy's office released a brief statement "taking note" of the results, but the leader of his UMP party, Jean-Francois Cope, admitted the election had been "a defeat" for the Senate's outgoing centre-right majority.

Unlike previous election nights, Sarkozy did not assemble ministers and senior advisors for post-match analysis, preferring to spend his evening at home. His wife, Carla Bruni, is due to give birth in the next few weeks.

Right-wing parties have controlled the Senate since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958, and Sunday's flip to the left could break the already weak momentum of Sarkozy's unannounced re-election drive.

Before the vote, outgoing speaker Gerard Larcher had been confident of maintaining at least a six- to 12-seat margin to win re-election to his post on 1 October when the new chamber meets.

But he had also admitted to AFP that if he was defeated by the left it would be a political "earthquake" and "preparations for the presidential election would be singularly changed".

The historic Senate victory opens the door to a possible Socialist hat-trick, given that opinion polls suggest the left will win next year's presidential and parliamentary elections.

"For the first time, the National Assembly, the Senate and the president could be from the left, which would give them serious weight if they decided to modify the constitution," said political scientist Bruno Jeanbert.

The left-leaning mood in the country appeared already to have had political consequences: Budget Minister Valerie Pecresse confirmed the threshold for top rate income tax might be lowered.

Sarkozy has attempted to play on his foreign policy credentials as the current chairman of the G8 and G20 groupings of major powers and the main foreign champion of the Libyan revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

But whatever glory he may have picked up on the international stage has been drowned out at home by his closest allies being implicated in a series of high-level corruption and party funding scandals.

Unemployment remains high and France's financial sector has found itself under attack on the markets, where traders fear its banks are overexposed to risky Greek and Italian debts.