France's ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy has been spectacularly thrown out of the race for the French presidency with voters cutting short a political comeback that tapped into populist sentiment.
Dealt a humiliating blow in the conservative nomination contest, four years after losing a first re-election bid to Socialist Francois Hollande, Sarkozy, 61, alluded to a possible withdrawal from political life .
"It's time for me to try a life with more private passions than public ones," he said, thanking his supermodel-turned-singer wife Carla Bruni and his children.
His surprise exit also marked the failure of a strategy to court far-right voters with divisive rhetoric and tough measures on immigration and law-and-order.
In campaign speeches, Sarkozy had vowed to ban the Islamic burkini swimsuit, had ruled out special school lunches for Muslim children - saying they should fill up on a double portion of chips when pork is on the menu - and told migrants gaining citizenship that their ancestors were Gauls.
Former prime minister Alain Juppe will go through to the runoff with fellow former premier Francois Fillon.
As president between 2007 and 2012, Sarkozy's high-energy style and abrasive manner polarised voters. His modest attempts at tax and labour reforms and limited success in creating jobs disenchanted both free-marketeers and centrist voters whom he had also assiduously courted to win power.
Sarkozy promised to quit politics altogether after Hollande defeated him in May 2012. However, he returned to the fray in September 2014, citing the need to rescue France from what he described as the socialist's catastrophic presidency.
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