PARIS, Feb 12: Chaos deepened in Nicolas Sarkozy’s political stronghold on Tuesday, as the French president’s plunging poll numbers fuelled fears of a looming election disaster for his right-wing camp.

As the countdown begins to March municipal polls seen as a referendum on Sarkozy’s first nine months in power, an election fiasco in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where Sarkozy was mayor for 19 years, has added to his woes.

Sarkozy’s ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) said on Tuesday it had given up altogether on fielding a candidate for mayor in Neuilly, after an imbroglio that saw the president’s own son oust his chosen contender for the post.

Elysee spokesman David Martinon, sent by Sarkozy to contest the mayoral race in the wealthy Paris suburb, threw in the towel Monday after he was publicly dropped by the 21-year-old Jean Sarkozy.

Jean was believed to have been acting on his father’s orders, after a secret poll showed Martinon losing the town, but the episode was derided as a “farce” by the French press and the opposition.

“Is Sarkozy losing his touch?” wrote the left-wing Liberation newspaper, saying the “prince” had failed to impose his candidate in “the heart of the kingdom... the town the UMP could not lose.” France’s richest town, Neuilly voted 86 per cent in favour of Sarkozy in last year’s presidential race, earning it the nickname “Sarkoland”.

The affair is an unwelcome embarrassment for Sarkozy, currently on a trip to French Guiana, as he battles a collapse in popularity and unwelcome revelations about his private life.

A new IPSOS-Le Point survey showed his approval rate hitting the lowest point since his election at 39 per cent.

“This time there is no ignoring the alarm bells,” wrote Le Parisien newspaper, suggesting that “panic and confusion at the Elysee” faced with his poll collapse explained the party’s loss of control in Neuilly.

Many right-wing deputies fear the president’s unpopularity — and the impression of unruliness in their camp — will cost them their second jobs as mayors or local councillors in next month’s election.

Staking out its ground, the UMP said on Tuesday it was throwing its weight behind a dissident pro-Sarkozy candidate in Neuilly, Jean Fromentin, and would no longer field a candidate of its own.

“We wish him good luck,” UMP secretary general Patrick Devedjian told reporters, saying he hoped the “past turbulence would soon be forgotten.” Adding to the confusion, however, local UMP heavyweight Jean Teulle — who had struck out with Jean Sarkozy at the weekend — said he would still run, even without the party’s support.

But Devedjian quashed any suggestion that Jean Sarkozy himself could run.

“Jean Sarkozy has a lot of talent, he is an intelligent, sensitive boy who loves politics and has a talent for it,” the party leader said.

But he highlighted the son’s youth and added “his time has not yet come.”

“In a republic jobs are earned through merit, through work, not by inheritance,” he added.

Sarkozy’s tumble in the polls — losing 19 points since December — is blamed on overexposure of his romance with France’s new first lady Carla Bruni, which has jarred with a darkening national mood.

French voters are growing increasingly concerned about the state of the economy, and impatient to see the results of Sarkozy’s vaunted reforms — which he promised would kickstart growth and boost incomes.

The saga over his private life took a new twist last week when Sarkozy took legal action against a magazine website that alleged he text-messaged his ex-wife Cecilia offering to call off his wedding to Bruni if she came back.

The left-leaning Nouvel Observateur magazine says it stands by its story.

—AFP