Longtime No. 2 Beats Sarkozy in French Conservative Primary

Former Premier Francois Fillon under Sarkozy bested party favourite Alain Juppe who only garnered 28 per cent of provisional results.

Francois Fillon had the largest share of votes in early returns Sunday from the first round of the conservative primary for next year’s presidential election.

Alain Juppe was lying second and former president Nicolas Sarkozy was in third place.

Meanwhile, Mr Fillon’s stance on Russian President Vladimir Putin will be closely watched.

The surprisingly big lead hands Fillon, 62, a strong advantage in next Sunday’s runoff.

He is widely perceived as an Anglophile; he is supportive of close ties with the United Kingdom, has a Welsh wife and has said he follows in the political tradition of British conservative heroes like Margaret Thatcher.

Politically, he sat just to the left of Mr Sarkozy who nudged further to the right in his campaign in an attempt to steal votes from the far-right.

“Francois Fillon seems to me to have best understood the challenges facing France”, Mr Sarkozy said.

Juppe’s strategy of playing the moderate against the fiery Sarkozy and the reform-minded Fillon appears to have backfired.

At stake is an nearly certain place in the second round of next spring’s presidential election, pollsters say, with the French left in turmoil under the deeply unpopular President Francois Hollande.

Socialist Hollande is weighing whether to make an apparently suicidal run for a second term as president next year in the face of polls that show him unlikely to even reach double figures if he goes ahead as a candidate.

Others have suggested a Le Pen presidency could lead to the break-up of the eurozone.

It also raised questions over the accuracy of opinion polls, which were under scrutiny again on Monday in France.

Fillon, who is popular in the business world, has promised “radical” economic measures but is the most conservative of the three on social issues.

“Fillon… greatly benefited from the current protest against “Marriage for All”. Juppé, the Mayor of Bordeaux, has served as both the foreign minister and prime minister of France, under Jacques Chirac.

In that decisive poll next May, the conservative challenger would in all likelihood face National Front party leader Marine Le Pen.

Juppe was not giving up.

In contrast, Fillon – who was prime minister under Sarkozy for five years – has cultivated an austere, classic style, banking on family and Catholic values.

Key promises: cap on legal immigration, respect for religious freedom, raising retirement age to 65, extending workweek beyond 35 hours, cutting taxes.

At the other end of the spectrum, the vice-president of Le Pen’s National Front (FN), Florian Philippot, said Fillon’s economic proposals were “the most extreme” of all candidates.

Fillon is seen winning next Sunday’s primaries’ runoff with 56 percent of the votes vs 44 percent for Juppe, according to the OpinionWay poll carried out amid 3,095 voters who took part in the first round of the primaries this Sunday. Ms Kosciusko-Morizet, a former environment minister, endorsed Mr Juppe. He will try to present himself as the man of the centre.

“Defeat must not humiliate anyone because we will need everyone”, he said.

The ruling Socialists and their allies will hold their own primaries in January.

Some voters may have chosen Fillon to defy polls and media that pointed to Juppe as the favorite to win the conservative nomination.

Another beneficiary could be Emmanuel Macron.