NEWS,22.04.2012.

France votes as Sarkozy faces defeat after one term

France's incumbent President and right-wing ruling party Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate for the French 2012 presidential election Nicolas Sarkozy smiles on April 22, 2012 as he leaves the polling booth before casting his vote for the first-round of the 2012 presidential election at a polling station in Paris.Tens of millions of French voters turned out Sunday for the first round of a presidential poll that is expected to see the left oust Nicolas Sarkozy after only one turbulent term in office.The left has not won a presidential election in a quarter of a century, but with France mired in low growth and rising joblessness, opinion polls predict Socialist challenger Francois Hollande will beat the right-wing incumbent.Turnout at 5:00pm (1500 GMT), with three hours of voting to go, was strong at almost 71 per cent, belying fears that a low-key campaign would be capped by mass abstentions in the vote itself.Polling organisation IFOP predicted an overall turnout of 80 per cent.Sunday's poll will whittle down the field from 10 to two and Hollande and Sarkozy are expected to face each other in the May 6 run-off to decide who runs France, a nuclear-armed power and Europe's second largest economy.Hollande says Sarkozy has trapped France in a downward spiral of austerity and job losses, while Sarkozy says his rival is inexperienced and weak-willed and would spark financial panic through reckless spending pledges.The eurozone debt crisis and France's sluggish growth and high unemployment have hung over the campaign, with Sarkozy struggling to defend his record and Hollande unable to credibly promise spending increases."I have never missed a vote, but this time I feel little enthusiasm for the election," said 62-year-old retired high school teacher Isabelle Provost as she emerged into bright Paris sunshine after casting her ballot."Economically there is little difference between the two main candidates," she said, echoning the sentiment of many other voters of the right and the left.If, as expected, Sarkozy polls second, he will be the only incumbent French president to lose a first round-vote in the history of the Fifth Republic, which came into being in 1958.Hollande voted in his stronghold, the country town of Tulle in the central Correze region, where he is the local member of parliament and heads the regional council. He was warmly greeted by officials and voters alike."I am attentive, engaged, but first of all respectful," he told reporters. "The day ahead will be a long one, this is an important moment."Sarkozy and his former supermodel wife Carla Bruni cast their ballots in Paris' plush 16th district, a stronghold of his right-wing UMP party.Hollande was to make a speech in Tulle minutes after polls close and official results estimates are announced on the prime-time 8:00 pm television news, while Sarkozy was to speak in Paris at around 9:00 pm.

Protests in Spain

 

 Thousands of people demonstrated in the streets of Barcelona on Saturday a day after the government announced cuts to public spending in health and education.Education unions which organised the demonstration said 30 000 turned out to voice their opposition to the cuts, to be carried out at the national and at the level of the local region, Catalonia. Police put the figure at 2 000.Rosa Canyadell, of the education USTEC said the authorities were in the process of dismantling state education."Education is the best way of overcoming the economic and social crisis, and public education is the only way we can guarantee social cohesion," said a statement by parents, unions and educational associations.Spain's ruling conservative Popular Party has vowed to cut the country's deficit, which reached 8.51% of GDP in 2011.On Friday it adopted an austerity budget designed slash spending by 10 billion euros ($13 billion) a year: three billion euros of those cuts will come from education.The measures include letting regional governments expand class sizes by 20% and raising university fees to an average 1 500 euros from 1 000 euros.Spain's main unions have called for a day of protests against the cuts in health and education spending on April 29.