( AFP ) - President Nicolas Sarkozy's camp suffered setbacks in several large cities in round one of local elections Sunday, a fresh blow for the French leader whose popularity has plummeted since his triumphant election last year.
The first exit polls showed the opposition Socialists well-placed to score symbolic gains over Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party next Sunday in the decisive second round of a vote cast as a referendum on his presidency.
Nationwide, the Socialists took an estimated 47.5 percent of votes, well ahead of the UMP and its allies on 40 percent, according to a telephone survey released by the CSA institute after the close of polls at 8:00 pm (1900 GMT).
The opposition Socialists dethroned Sarkozy's UMP party in the northwestern city of Rouen and cemented their hold in the capital of northern France, Lille, winning both in the first round, according to exit polls from IPSOS, TNS-Sofres and CSA.
The left-wing party was expected to hold on to Paris and the country's third city Lyon in -- where results were expected later Sunday -- and could also take the second city Marseille, Strasbourg and Toulouse from the right.
Such symbolic victories, the first electoral test since Sarkozy's election last year, were set to further damage his ailing reputation and undermine his ability to plough ahead with his wide-ranging reform programme.
Sarkozy trounced his Socialist rival Segolene Royal in May with promises to overhaul France's economy but since then the rightwinger has seen his standing sink among voters dismayed by his flamboyant private life.
Royal, voting in the western town of Melle, said the election was an opportunity for the French to "punish" the government.
The election also sees Sarkozy's 21-year-old son Jean standing for a cantonal seat in Neuilly, the wealthy Paris suburb that catapulted his father to political prominence some 30 years ago.
Nicolas Sarkozy's divorce from his second wife Cecilia in October, followed by a jet-setting romance and swift marriage to supermodel and singer Carla Bruni, gave voters the impression he was neglecting their needs, pollsters say.
Voters are also disappointed that despite Sarkozy's repeated promises to rein in the cost of living, a national obsession in France, inflation has hit a 15-year high at 2.8 percent.
Public support for the president, who voted in a polling station near the Elysee palace, has plummeted from 67 percent last July to around one third of the electorate.
Final turnout was expected to reach between 68 and 70.5 percent, according to late afternoon estimates, slightly higher than in the 2001 local polls.
Sunday's vote has only a minor effect on national politics, even if 20 of Sarkozy's ministers and junior ministers are running for local office. But it is being cast as a referendum on the president's achievements.
He has eased France's 35-hour work week, the shortest in Europe, and reduced pension benefits for state workers, a feat which presidents before him tried and failed, while unemployment has fallen to 7.5 percent, its lowest level in more than two decades.
But this has not dispelled public gloom, with consumer confidence at a 21-year low.
The Socialists, riven by infighting and still smarting after a third consecutive presidential defeat, accuse Sarkozy of hobnobbing with the rich and famous while secretly drawing up a painful austerity plan for ordinary folk.
Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) currently controls 55 percent of all towns of more than 30,000 inhabitants, after winning 23 from the left in 2001.
Forty-four million French voters are choosing the mayors and local councillors of 37,000 towns and villages as well as filling half of all local canton, or district, seats on the country's 100 departmental councils.