Fillon wins French centre-right primary, Sarkozy down and out

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has pulled out of the 2017 race and endorsed his former prime minister, François Fillon, after losing the first round of primaries for the centre-right party.

On Sunday, Fillon won the first round for Les Républicans with 44.2% after a late surge.

Sarkozy’s come-back ended with a whimper with just 20.7% of the vote in third place and another former prime minister, Alain Juppé, trailed in second place with 28.4%.

During the primary campaign Juppé and Sarkozy were the frontrunners in a seven candidate race, while Fillon was far behind in third place in polls. The late surge was attributed to an ‘anyone but Sarkozy vote’ and momentum leaving Juppé, who, along with the former president, has been dogged by legal battles.

This was the first time the vote was open to the general public in a ‘US style’ primary with each voter paying €2.

Fillon, now the frontrunner, and Juppé and will head to the second round on 27 November doing battle for the centre-right ticket, with the winner of this contest expected to head to the Elysee Palace and become France’s next president.

Front National leader Marine Le Pen is anticipated to make it to the final run-off according to polls, but will fall short of winning the presidency.

However, Reuters said that polls have shown that Juppé would beat Le Pen but there had been no recent surveys on how Fillon would fare.

Sarkozy had campaigned to the hard right to compete with Le Pen, targeting minorities and Muslims, while Fillon was traditionally conservative championing Thatcherite policies and Juppé was more centrist promising economic reform.

Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, said France has avoided a Le Pen versus Sarkozy contest in the run-off for the presidential election, which could have been an unpredictable version of the Trump versus Clinton campaign in the US, with a divisive candidate from the odious right running against a mainstream candidate with significant baggage.

“Sarkozy is more associated with a string of potentially embarrassing scandals than Fillon or Juppé. That France will now apparently avoid this scenario reduces the political risks in France and Europe. Despite Fillon’s comparatively radical reform ideas, centrist and centre-left voters in France may find it less difficult to support him rather than Sarkozy on 7 May.”

In the 2002 presidential election, Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the run-off but lost emphatically to Jacques Chirac when the left and centre-right rallied to defeat the far-right candidate.

Meanwhile, incumbent François Hollande’s approval rating has plummeted to single digits, and he is yet to say whether he will run again. Current prime minister Manuel Valls is rumoured to be planning to stand instead, but either Socialist politician is not expected to go to the final run-off.

Former minister Emmanuel Macron announced last week he is to run as an independent in the centre-ground, but lacks a formal party network, and could erode votes from the left, hurting the Socialists.