In France elections will be held in the 26 regions of France on 14 and 21 March 2010. The election is being seen as a forerunner to the presidential and legislative elections of 2012. Given President Sarkozy has been having a tough time recently, they are also the opportunity for a (slightly more than) mid-term judgment to be passed on his presidency.

Anyway, last week an Ifop poll in Paris-Match suggested that the president’s party, the UMP, is in difficulty. Here are the results:

Socialist party, 27%
UMP (Sarkozy’s party), 27%
Greens, 13%
National Front 8.5%
Modem (centrists), 6%
Communists and the Left party, 5%
Others, 4%
Anti-capitalist party (trotskyist), 3%
Workers’ Struggle (trotskyist), 2%
Alternative Greens, 2%

Obviously, the election is actually 26 separate contests and there is considerable local variation. Even so, the poll shows that, once again, the left is very divided. However, in one sense, the Socialist party has reason to be pleased in that it is running neck-and-neck with the UMP and that it is outdistancing any of its left-wing rivals by a considerable distance.