Sarkozy set to be first one-term French president in 30 years

TIME is running out for French President Nicolas Sarkozy as he strives to avoid being the first single-term president since Valery Giscard D'Estaing was defeated by Francois Mitterand in 1981.

Fighting killer poll ratings and - rarely for the French left - a united and invigorated Socialist opponent, Sarkozy has taken to the world stage in recent days as he seeks to portray himself as a global player.

On Friday he waded into the Iran nuclear stand-off, telling an audience of diplomats that "France will do everything to avoid a military intervention, but there is only one way to avoid it: a much tougher, more decisive, sanctions regime."

Then, after the deaths last week of four French soldiers in Afghanistan, Sarkozy said that he would consider withdrawing forces from the country ahead of Nato's deadline of the end of 2014 and temporarily suspended operations there.

And he continues to stir the pot with Turkey by pushing through a bill in the French parliament which will make denying that the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was genocide a criminal offence - a move that the Turkish government has said will bring "permanent sanctions".

Of course the reason why the M Le President wants French voters to look abroad is plain to see - domestically, Nicolas Sarkozy is deep in la merde.

Standard & Poor's downgrade of the nation from its cherished triple-A status earlier this month merely confirmed what everyone knew: France's heavily indebted economy is suffering acutely from the eurozone crisis that Sarkozy must resolve as one of the prime engineers of the whole project.

Politically, Sarkozy finds himself in a unique position in the run-up to the first-round of voting on 22 April, fighting opponents on three fronts. On the left, Socialist frontrunner Francois Hollande is polling in the high 20s and has a clear lead over the incumbent who is stuck around 23 per cent.

Meanwhile, on the right he is being squeezed between Marine Le Pen of the far-right FN and Francois Bayrou from the 'Anyone but Sarko' centre right. The latest Paris Match tracker poll has Le Pen on 21 per cent, just two points behind Sarkozy, with Bayrou taking 13 per cent.

While the combined total of these three right-wing candidates (57 per cent) ought to hand the second round to Sarkozy, where a simple majority is required, the depth of enmity towards the president from “his own people” means that Hollande wins crushingly (57-43) in second-round run-off polls.

And things could yet get worse for the president's UMP party. Parliamentary elections in June could even see a victorious Hollande's Socialist party sweep away the right in the National Assembly and give him a clear mandate to reverse five-years of Sarkozysme. ·