FRANCE: The rise of the extreme right-wing in France was a freak electoral accident, writes Lara Marlowe
So the rise of the extreme right-wing in France was an illusion, a freak electoral accident.
In the second round of the French presidential election yesterday, Jean-Marie Le Pen barely improved on his first round score. In two weeks of non-stop radio and television appearances, the man who wants to expel immigrants from France and withdraw from the EU converted only 500,000 of 41 million voters.
Mr Le Pen's candidacy was the result of a surfeit of candidates in the first round who fragmented the vote, especially on the left, and a mediocre campaign by the outgoing Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Mr Jospin switched signals, making the far left think he was too centrist, then telling the centrists that he was returning to the far left.
He admitted his "naiveté" on the crucial issue of security and mocked Mr Chirac for talking too much about it. Mr Jospin strengthened the impression that he thought he was too good for the French people by voting by proxy to avoid the press yesterday. Today he will hand over power to Mr Chirac's new prime minister.
No previous president of the Fifth Republic received anywhere near Mr Chirac's landslide 82.5 per cent of the vote. The wide margin gives Mr Chirac the freedom to name his first choice as prime minister, the senator and president of the regional council of Poitou-Charentes, Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Mr Raffarin is less aggressive than the other favourite, the former budget minister, Mr Nicolas Sarkozy.
Though opinion polls show Mr Sarkozy is more popular, Mr Raffarin is older and better fulfils Mr Chirac's main criterion of being "distant from all political or personal ambition".
He is close to the former Prime Minister Alain Juppé - France's virtual vice president - and, unlike Mr Sarkozy, supported Mr Chirac when the former finance minister, Mr Edouard Balladur, challenged him for the presidency in 1995.
But for the next five years, Mr Chirac and the French electorate will know that he owes his victory to the left, who voted for him in their millions, out of revulsion for Mr Le Pen.
"You took your decision . . . despite traditional divisions," Mr Chirac said last night. "And some of you went beyond your personal, political preferences. I want to respond to the confidence you have shown me."
If Mr Chirac is to avoid another "cohabitation" with the left and become more than a figurehead president, his newly-founded Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP) must win next month's legislative elections.
"Cohabitation played a big role in the rise of extremism," Mr Sarkozy said. "Because cohabitation leads to confusion, and confusion leads to protest votes." For the next six weeks, the centre-right will strive to convince the electorate that Mr Chirac needs the National Assembly behind him to carry out reforms.
That is where the National Front could come back to haunt Mr Chirac. "We'll see you in the legislative elections," Mr Le Pen said with a sinister laugh when he acknowledged defeat. In every constituency where the National Front attains at least 12.5 per cent of the vote in the first round on June 9th, it will be present in the second round one week later. A split right-wing vote in these three-way "triangular" contests helped the left to take the Assembly in 1997.
But in the wake of Mr Jospin's defeat, the socialists are floundering.
When the communists, Greens and a gaggle of extreme left-wing groups called a demonstration at the Bastille last night to claim Mr Chirac's victory for themselves, the socialists could not decide whether they should participate.
Yet these groups are to meet tomorrow to attempt to form an alliance for the legislative elections.