Former French PM drops out of presidential race

He has taken this decision after failing to receive enough official signatures needed to register his candidacy.The conservative rival of French President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped aside on Thursday, announcing that he was still 30 signatures short of the 500 required from official sponsors, Reuters reported.De Villepin was France’s prime minister during the presidency of Jacques Chirac between 2005 and 2007.Tensions between de Villepin and the incumbent president escalated during the so-called ‘Clearstream affair’ in 2008.The scandal saw Sarkozy accusing de Villepin of being involved in the publication of a forged list of names linking the French president to secret Luxembourg accounts, thus trying to discredit him in the run-up to his 2007 election campaign.Meanwhile, Sarkozy’s popularity has been faltering in the opinion polls well behind the front-running Socialist candidate, Francois Hollande, since the president officially launched his re-election bid for the April 22 polls.