Le Pen may endorse Sarkozy IF he agrees to help the National Front in June's parliamentary elections
"In case of a run-off between the National Front and a Socialist, will the UMP party and the president prefer to have one of my deputies or a Socialist deputy elected?" Le Pen said... But Sarkozy has yet to say whether he would advise supporters of his UMP party to vote Socialist rather than for the National Front in the second round of the June legislative elections to keep the far-right out of parliament.
An opinion poll showed two-thirds of Sarkozy supporters want him to break with past policy and strike an alliance with the National Front after Le Pen's 17.9 per cent score on Sunday made her 6.4 million backers key to the presidential run-off.
Most polls show Hollande comfortably winning on May 6 by around 10 percentage points. He is expected to win the vast majority of far-left votes and much of the centrist support. The prospect of Hollande winning power has sent jitters through financial markets as the 57-year-old has pledged to renegotiate a German-inspired budget discipline pact for Europe, putting him on a collision course with Berlin.
A big vote for Sarkozy by National Front supporters would make it mathematically possible for him to win a fresh five-year term. Sarkozy needs about 80 per cent of Le Pen voters behind him to avoid defeat, according to analyst estimates and a Reuters calculator. But surveys conducted during or after Sunday's first-round presidential vote found that between only 44 per cent and 60 per cent of Le Pen voters plan to switch to Sarkozy in round two, down from about 70 per cent in 2007.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9228124/France-elections-2012-Marine-Le-Pen-leaves-door-open-for-Nicolas-Sarkozy.html
Sarkozy has a chance to hold onto power if he agrees to back some National Front candidates in upcoming parliamentary elections. His party (and the left, of course) has always refused to strike deals with the far-right. Sarkozy has been campaigning on the far-right's favorite issues for a long time now, so striking a deal with them isn't as far-fetched as it was in the past.
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