France's Sarkozy faces growing discontent from party

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy answers a question during a news conference with Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown inside 10 Downing Street in London March 12, 2010.

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy faced growing discontent from within his own party Wednesday ahead of regional elections that are expected to end in a heavy defeat for the center-right.

Sarkozy's party lost out to resurgent opposition Socialists in the first round of the election at the weekend and polls suggest the UMP is heading for a mauling in Sunday's runoff.

The president and Prime Minister Francois Fillon have both issued stern warnings against internal dissent and urged ministers to throw themselves into the campaign, but there has been increasingly open criticism of the leadership.

"We've had a slap in the face and the virtue of that in politics is that it wakes you up," Francois Baroin, a minister under former President Jacques Chirac, told Europe 1 radio.

Baroin, one of several center-right deputies to speak out on Wednesday, said the government's insistence that it would not change course was counterproductive and he said Sarkozy had to face up to the record low turnout of less than 50 percent.

"He has to listen to the message, there's no doubt about that," said Baroin, who is also mayor of the eastern city of Troyes. "There's a corner he has to turn. It takes courage."

The UMP's poor showing in the first round could end with the center-right out of office in all 22 of the mainland regions. It holds only two metropolitan regions, Corsica and Alsace, at present and polls show it trailing the Socialists in both.

The regional councils have little real power, but the election has been widely seen as a direct blow against Sarkozy in the last nationwide ballot before the 2012 presidential race.

FALLING APPROVAL RATINGS

How far the regional vote may influence the presidential election is still unclear. The Socialists won the last regional ballot in 2004 triumphantly, but were decisively defeated by Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election.

However Sarkozy's personal popularity has been falling for months as worries over issues from jobs and the economy to security and immigration have mounted.

The president's approval ratings are well behind those of Fillon, a low-key but tenacious politician who has long suffered from Sarkozy's overwhelming dominance of the government.

According to a survey published this week by the BVA polling institute, 43 percent of voters wanted to Fillon to stand for the presidency in 2012, against just 29 percent for Sarkozy.

Sarkozy has severely tested the loyalty of conservative deputies by offering several high profile posts to Socialists as part of a policy of "openness," which he says is aimed at securing the best talents for France but which critics say is aimed at dividing the opposition.

A controversial debate on national identity, organized by Immigration Minister Eric Besson, a former Socialist recruited by Sarkozy in 2007, has added to the unease, with critics saying it directly boosted the far right National Front vote.

Sarkozy has ruled out a major reshuffle but there has been speculation that Fillon will symbolically offer his resignation Sunday and that it will be refused.

However, the position of several ministers, including Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who is widely reported in the French press to have fallen into disfavor because he has stayed out of campaigning, could be under threat.