French President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right bloc suffered a comprehensive defeat in Sunday's local elections, but managed to cling on to power in one mainland region to avoid a whitewash, exit polls said.
The Socialist party and its allies won some 54 percent of the vote at a national level, to give the left control of at least 20 of the 22 regions up for grabs on the mainland, while the centre-right won 36 percent, OpinionWay pollsters said.
The far-right National Front took just 8.7 percent nation-wide, according to OpinionWay, but veteran party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen secured backing of almost 25 percent of voters in his region in the far south of France, it predicted. Although Sunday's result represents a triumph for the Socialists, the fact the centre-right appeared set to hold on to the Alsace region in the east was a big relief for Sarkozy, who has come under criticism from his own camp over his policies.