Sarkozy headed for big win in French poll

PARIS (Reuters) - Right-wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy was set to score a crushing victory in parliamentary elections on Sunday, despite a row over his plans for tax hikes that appeared to have rallied the left.

An eve of poll survey gave Sarkozy's ruling conservatives and allies 380-420 seats in the National Assembly, a body Sarkozy must control if he is to implement campaign pledges to cut tax, boost the economy and slash unemployment.

Some reports said the party was looking to up its seats from 359 in the outgoing parliament to 400 or more.

Polling begins at 8 a.m. (2:00 a.m. EDT) and ends at 8 p.m. (2:00 p.m. EDT), when the first television projections will be known. But only the size of the right's majority remained in doubt.

Over the two rounds of voting, independent centrists and extremist parties were likely to be the biggest losers.

The Democratic Movement of centrist Francois Bayrou was expected to win just 2-3 seats, the Greens 2-4, the Communists up to 16 and the far-right National Front none.

The main opposition Socialists appeared to have profited from the government's bungling of an unpopular value added tax (VAT) review. But to gain ground they will still need the votes of centrists and those who abstained last week in record numbers.

Sarkozy had urged voters to back his agenda for change with a powerful majority and his energetic start to his presidency has proven popular with voters and driven the right's campaign.

An Ipsos/Dell poll on Saturday projected Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and its centre-right associates would win 380-420 seats, below the institute's previous estimate and well short of the 463 seats suggested by other surveys.

The dip suggested the left had struck a chord with voters over the VAT row and its warnings a large majority would give Sarkozy unfettered power to push through radical reforms.

"The left at last managed to find a campaign theme," noted the conservative daily Le Figaro, asking: "Will it be enough to wake up the abstainers who left them short on June 10?"

KING SARKOZY?

Only one of 110 deputies elected outright a week ago was a Socialist, but the party could still improve on the 149 seats it held in the outgoing parliament. Ipsos projected the Socialists and their allies would get 153-195 seats.

Defeated Socialist Segolene Royal topped the presidential vote in some 200 constituencies, and she and other party stalwarts have urged left-wing and centrist voters to turn out in droves to clip the wings of a right in full flow.

"Do we need Nicolas Sarkozy to be crowned king of the republic on Sunday?" asked the left-wing daily Liberation in an editorial. "The issue goes way beyond the immediate interests of a left that, in any case, must rebuild everything."

The party is set for a bout of blood-letting after recording its third straight defeat in presidential elections in May, and the seats of several stalwarts are under threat. A rout could force out party leader Francois Hollande.

Sarkozy, who has played a low profile in the campaign, is expected to quickly complete his governing team after Sunday's vote. Half a dozen or so junior ministers could include ethnic minority figures, non-UMP politicians and maintain a rough ministerial parity between the sexes.