By Catherine Bremer
CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France (Reuters) - Having built a dream life in France, raising five kids in a big suburban home, Haitian Lejesse Sertile grew so tired of crime that he switched to the right and voted for Nicolas Sarkozy in a 2007 election.
Four years on, angry at rampant theft and shootings he blames on jobless immigrants in his town of Clichy-sous-Bois and a dearth of new orders at his construction business, he is not sure he will back the president for reelection in April 2012.
In nearby Le Raincy, a middle-class town of sushi takeouts and florists, retired butcher Jean-Pierre Dupont, 64, is so angry about his shrunken purchasing power that he plans to cast a blank vote where last time he voted Sarkozy.
Across France, millions of people who once backed Sarkozy -- a straight-talking conservative who vowed a break with elitism and a focus on jobs and crime -- are shunning him in a shift that could mean the first left-wing victory in 24 years.
Efforts to lift his dismal ratings with tough policies on immigrants, diplomatic showmanship in North Africa and a pledge to oblige companies to pay bonuses have all failed, leaving him precious little time to find a way to win back defectors.
"I haven't made up my mind yet," said Lejesse, whose two-storey house faces soulless tower blocks packed with North African immigrants and so plagued by unemployment that riots erupted there in 2005 and spread all over urban France.
"I didn't come to France to live with hoodlums who hang about and do nothing all day. Crime has got worse and business has been at a standstill for six months. Sarkozy has a year to convince me, but he's off to a bad start," he said.
In the housing project over the road, Arab and African immigrants, many of whom wear traditional djellaba smocks and slippers, say they will back the opposition Socialist Party after Sarkozy failed to deliver on pledges to improve their lot.
"Sarkozy promised us a good life, but it hasn't happened," said labourer Mohammed Kfaiti, 41. "Living here is hellish."
IMMIGRANTS, WELFARE COME TO FOREFRONT
There is no sense of an ideological swing to the left in France, even if many had rated Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, as impeccably qualified to lead the country.
Strauss-Kahn was on Sunday arrested and charged with an alleged sexual assault, including an attempted rape, on a hotel maid in New York City.
But pollsters say low-income voters, unemployed youths and minorities like Muslims are all deserting Sarkozy and his centre-right UMP party.
Meanwhile, a surge in support for the far-right National Front, as its new leader Marine Le Pen plays on concerns over an influx of migrants from turmoil-hit North Africa and gloom over tighter income, could give her just enough votes to knock Sarkozy out in the first round of the 2012 election.
That could ensure a Socialist victory in the runoff.
A new theme emerging a year before the vote and seized on by European Affairs Minister Laurent Wauquiez is a sense low-income families resent immigrants living off welfare.
Wauquiez called over-generous benefits, which also weigh on the French economy, a "cancer" and suggested they be trimmed.
"France's socio-economic model could become a key issue for 2012," said political analyst Jean-Thomas Lesueur.
"There is a big protest vote for Le Pen and it's largely from the working-class guy in the suburbs who can't make ends meet at the end of the month and has the impression his African neighbour with 12 kids is doing better on welfare."
In Le Raincy, just north of Paris, support for the UMP has dropped by around 10 percentage points in recent local elections due to abstentions and defections to the far-right, notably from younger voters angry at soaring youth unemployment.
"People had such high expectations that the disappointment is big," said Le Raincy's UMP Mayor Eric Raoult, who has been close to Sarkozy since they did military service together.
"People are annoyed with Sarkozy so they are staying at home or voting far-right," he told Reuters at his town hall office.
Dupont, the retired butcher, insists he is not a racist but says he will vote for the anti-immigrant National Front in the first round of the 2012 election, then cast a blank vote if a second round is Sarkozy versus a left-wing candidate.
"We're all disappointed with him. My pension hasn't gone up in three years but prices are up for everything, electricity, food -- petrol has gone up 33 percent in six months," he said.
Slamming down his beer on the formica bar of a cafe dominated by TV horse races and betting forms, he said Sarkozy's biggest mistake was to cut interest rates on savings accounts and then unveil plans to ease taxes on the wealthy.
BANLIEUE-DWELLERS, MUSLIMS DISAPPOINTED
Sarkozy, still seen the UMP's most-likely candidate, may not announce a rerun until late 2011, but aides say he badly wants another stint as president, a job he coveted since his youth.
His toughest rival on the left would have been Strauss-Kahn, whose free-market views and economic prowess appeal to the centre, but after Sunday's sex assault charges the Socialists are more likely to pick party veterans Martine Aubry or Francois Hollande, who both have a strong following, as their candidate.
The immediate focus of Sarkozy's campaign will be to beat back Le Pen and make sure he scrapes into the runoff, where many analysts still see him with a fighting chance against the left.
"It's all about the first round," said Lesueur. "Many of those who backed Sarkozy no longer believe in him but they could still vote UMP in round two, even if they're unenthusiastic."
Past opinion polls had given Strauss-Kahn a clear edge in a runoff. The sex scandal could boost Sarkozy's chances.
One minority Sarkozy may have alienated beyond repair are Muslims, many of whom resent a new ban on full-face veils and a lack of mosque space that forces them to pray in the street.
Abderrahmane Dahmane, an ex-Sarkozy advisor fired after he opposed a debate on Islam, is on a campaign to get France's five million Muslims to vote against the president next year.
"Today it is out of the question for Muslims to vote for Sarkozy," he told Reuters, during a meeting at a mosque marked for closure in the northwestern suburb of Gennevilliers.
"The UMP's policies have become fascist and racist. We are going to take a decision in February on which candidate to back and will call on Muslims to vote massively against Sarkozy."
An activist for economically deprived "banlieue" suburbs around Paris, Hassan Ben M'Barek, said that even without what he called Sarkozy's "attacks on Muslims," banlieue-dwellers across France were angry he has failed to address their problems.
"In four years, he has never reached out his hand to the banlieues. This is the youth of France and he's ignored them."
SARKOZY EMBATTLED BUT UNDAUNTED
Polls show Sarkozy is France's least popular president in years, with many people resentful of a manner they find brash and impulsive and a governing style criticised as clannish.
Two-thirds of French don't even want him to run in 2012.
Attempts to woo back the public by chatting to ordinary folk on a TV show about their concerns, did not improve his ratings. Nor did his assertiveness on the Libyan crisis or his military operation to help Ivory Coast oust Laurent Gbagbo.
With a new film out this month that pokes fun at how Sarkozy lost his ex-wife the day he won the election, the UMP has been on a publicity drive to flag his achievements in office, such as a pension reform to trim the public deficit and his deft handling of the global financial crisis.
For the months ahead, Sarkozy aides say he will focus on starving Le Pen of oxygen, noting how fast he moved to stifle concern over immigrants fleeing Tunisian unrest by shutting the border with Italy and pushing for a permanent mechanism to overrule Europe's Schengen open border rules.
"He won't leave the National Front time to react. He sees it like a sore that gets inflamed if you scratch it. The minute he sees a problem he will rush to pour on antiseptic," said Raoult.
Sarkozy's battleplan includes capping banker bonuses and introducing measures to ease the cost of caring for elderly relatives. He may also pull troops out of Afghanistan early after the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Even his critics say Sarkozy is far from beaten. "He is a fighter, and a very good one," said Bernard Kouchner, a left-wing former foreign minister Sarkozy who ditched in 2010.
One last crowd-pleasing tactic might be a presidential baby, with First Lady Carla Bruni widely rumoured to be pregnant.
"With a year go to, anything could happen," said Raoult. "People have not changed camp, they are just sulking, so he still has a chance of winning them back."
(Editing by Jon Boyle)
