French far-right leader Marine Le Pen delivered a further blow today to President Nicolas Sarkozy's hopes of re-election by refusing to endorse him and telling her six million supporters to make their own choice at Sunday's ballot.
Mr Sarkozy, who faces off against Socialist François Hollande on May 6th, needs many of the 17.9 per cent of voters who chose National Front leader Ms Le Pen last week to switch to backing him in the runoff if he is to overcome first-round winner Mr Hollande.
But Ms Le Pen, who came third on April 22nd with a score that eclipsed her father's record at the head of the populist protest movement, told a rally in Paris today that she personally would spoil her ballot paper in the second round by choosing to vote for neither of the two remaining contenders.
"I will not grant my trust, or a mandate, to these two candidates," she told supporters at an annual commemoration of Joan of Arc, the national saint her group favours to the May Day celebrations held by international labour and leftist parties.
"On Sunday, I will cast a blank ballot."
Ms Le Pen did not further twist the knife for the conservative incumbent by urging her 6.4 million voters to do likewise. But in leaving them to make their own minds up she left it unclear how many will stay at home or even vote for Mr Hollande, who is running a six- to 10-percentage point lead in opinion polls.
"I have made my choice," she said. "Each of you will make yours."
Analysts had calculated that Mr Sarkozy might need as many as 80 per cent of Ms Le Pen's first-round voters if he were to win. But polls indicate only about half of them intend to.With a parliamentary election to come in June, National Front leaders believe they can break through and win seats in the legislature, especially if a heavy defeat for Mr Sarkozy plunges his centre-right UMP party into deeper disarray.
Being punished for economic gloom, rife unemployment and a widespread dislike of his presidential manner, Mr Sarkozy is the most unpopular sitting president to run for re-election and the first in the 54 years of the current electoral system to lose a first-round vote to a challenger.
Mr Hollande, a mild-mannered centre-leftist running on a tax-and-spend platform, would be the first left-wing president in 17 years to lead the euro zone's second biggest economy.
Reuters