But the prime minister failed to win the support of more than half of his 303 MPs after 136 Tories rejected the measure and around 40 Tory MPs either did not vote or actively abstained.
For Mr Sarkozy to win, he has to simultaneously gain the bulk of the 6.4 million voters who supported Ms Le Pen in the first round, a large chuck of François Bayrou's centrist voters and new voters who abstained in the round.
Another edit made a few minutes later drew attention to an interview given by the then attorney general, Dominic Grieve, to his local newspaper in his Buckinghamshire constituency noting that he "was one of four members of the cabinet who abstained in the May 2013 same-sex marriage vote.
Tim Farron was among nine Lib Dem MPs who abstained at third reading of the marriage bill – which was carried by 366 votes to 161 in May 2013 – despite previously voting for same-sex marriage legislation.
Clegg fulfilled this ambition when he formed a coalition with the Tories in 2010 – to the deep shock of Kennedy, who abstained in the vote on the coalition.
About 40 Conservatives, including the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, either formally abstained or did not vote in the second reading of the bill, which was subject to a free vote in which MPs were entitled to follow their consciences.
Fitt so loathed Mason that he abstained, when Margaret Thatcher, as leader of the opposition, called the no-confidence vote.
Maguire was persuaded to travel to London after a visit by one of Mason's team, but he was also antagonised and abstained, bringing Callaghan down.
Twenty years after the Bosnian war ended, the Russians for the first time abstained in November on a UN vote extending the EU peacekeeping mission in Sarajevo.
We abstained, in respectable company: with Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
