Socialists Trounced

President Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right camp was on course to win a landslide victory in Parliament Sunday after the first round of France's legislative elections, cementing his power to implement reforms in Europe's third-largest economy.

The Union for a Popular Movement obtained 41.3 percent of the vote, according to preliminary estimations by the CSA polling institute, a score that is expected to give the party between 360 and 470 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly after the second round of voting June 17, three pollsters said.

The main opposition camp, the Socialist Party, received an estimated 27.2 percent, putting it on course for 60 to 170 seats, pollsters said, reinforcing the sense of disarray that has reigned on the left ever since Ségolène Royal lost to Sarkozy in last month's presidential race.

Sarkozy's party, which has set itself the unofficial goal of winning 400 seats, has been widely expected to obtain a comfortable majority, but the preliminary results Sunday exceeded even optimistic forecasts.

It is the first time since 1978 that an outgoing parliamentary majority is re-elected, a result favored by a recent change to synchronize the presidential and parliamentary terms. But with the Gaullist camp set to expand its dominance in Parliament from the current 359 seats, commentators said the result was also a sign that French voters trusted Sarkozy to jolt their country out of a collective sense of decline.

Amazing what tax cuts and a sense of law and order can do.

Even in France.