French Elections: Sarkozy’s Last Stand?

If Sarkozy does indeed lose the election, he will be the first incumbent French president to relinquish his office since 1981 when Francois Mitterrand defeated the one-term President Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

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Indeed, there is even doubt as to whether Sarkozy will make it past the first round of polls which are scheduled for April 22. A second run-off will then take place in early May.

The recent Ifop-Fiducial poll results for French newspaper Paris Match showed Sarkozy with a popularity rating of 24 percent, well behind Hollande, who leads with 30.5 percent. More alarming, Sarkozy is only about 4 points ahead of Le Pen, the National Front leader who many feel is unelectable due to her party's extremist views on various issues.

France's Economic Plight
Sarkozy's principal obstacle to re-election is France's fragile economic state plight - a direct result of the euro zone financial crisis that has spilled across the continent.

In December 2011, the number of unemployed people in France reached 2.85-million, a twelve-year high, or 9.9 percent of the workforce, according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Jobless claims have also leapt by 5.6 percent over the past year.

The financial daily newspaper Les Echos reported that almost nine-hundred French factories have been shut down since the economic crisis of 2008, costing some 100,000 jobs in France alone.

France is also overwhelmed with a public debt of some 1.69-trillion euros, which takes up about 85 percent of GDP. According to Agence France Presse (AFP), government officials expect that debt to climb to 89.1 percent of GDP this year and 89.3 percent of output next year.

The government has instituted two debt-cutting packages since August which are designed to save 72-billion euros, although Sarkozy has also promised no further austerity measures ahead of the April-May elections.

With France deeply ensnared in the euro zone debt crisis, the country  keeps piling on more public debt as it contributes to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a program created by the European Union (EU) to help bail out EU states such as Greece. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has stated that the ESM would total some 500 billion euros, "through a mix of paid-in capital, callable capital and guarantees."

Furthermore, the country's trade deficit reached an all-time high of 69.6 billion euros at the end of last year, according to AFP, highlighting France's eroding share of global trade and its lack of competitive advantage.