He trounced the Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal last year with promises of a clean break with the past, but since then has seen his popularity plummet among voters dismayed by his flamboyant private life.

This weekend's vote, with round two a week later, looks like it will provide fresh embarrassment, with opinion polls predicting major gains for the Socialists.

They are likely to hold on to Paris and the second city of Lyon, and could also take Marseille, Strasbourg and Toulouse from the right, symbolic victories that could further damage the president's ailing image.

The vote has only a minor effect on national politics, even if 13 of Sarkozy's ministers are running for local office, but the ballot has been cast as a referendum on the president's achievement in nearly a year at the helm.

Mr Sarkozy has sought to play down the importance of the elections, saying this week that the final verdict on whether he has delivered on promises to overhaul France's economy can only be made at the end of his five-year term.

'My mission is to ensure that all the reforms which have not been carried out in France for so many years are now completed,' he told Thursday's Le Figaro newspaper.

Since coming to power, he has begun easing France's 35-hour work week, the shortest in Europe, and reduced pension benefits for state workers, a feat which French presidents before him tried and failed.

And unemployment, which has been persistently high in France for decades, has fallen to 7.5 per cent, its lowest level in 25 years.

But this has not dispelled public gloom.

Consumer confidence in France has fallen to a 21-year low and inflation hit an 11-year high, fuelling the national obsession with the cost of living.

Mr Sarkozy's much-publicised divorce in October, followed by a jet-setting romance and swift marriage to supermodel and singer Carla Bruni, gave voters the impression he was neglecting their needs, pollsters said.

The Socialists, themselves riven by infighting and still smarting after their third consecutive defeat in presidential elections, accuse Mr Sarkozy of hobnobbing with the rich and famous while secretly drawing up a painful austerity plan for the rest.

But the president on Thursday reiterated the government line that an austerity plan was not on the cards.

'Reform will bring savings and it is these savings and growth that will bring about the reduction of deficits,' he said.

An opinion opoll this week showed that the head of state's popularity had fallen four percentage points to 38 per cent.

The CSA poll in Thursday's Le Parisien newspaper also showed that support for Prime Minister Francois Fillon's more discreet style had continued to rise, this time by eight points to 55 per cent.

Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) currently controls 55 per cent of all towns of more than 30,000 inhabitants, after winning 23 from the left in 2001.

But the right is bracing to lose many this time.

French voters are choosing the mayors and local councillors of 36,000 towns as well as filling half of all local canton, or district seats on the country's 100 departmental councils. -- AFP