The French vote - again and again

Today`s runoff to elect the French president is only the second in a series of four elections which started on April 21, with the first round of the presidential election, and will continue on June 9 and 16 with two successive rounds to elect the National Assembly.

This electoral marathon will lead to fundamental changes in the French political landscape, which is divided into two rival camps, broadly described as left and right.

The French constitution provides for a two-headed executive. The president is elected by direct popular vote. The prime minister is elected by the National Assembly, itself also elected by direct popular vote.

In 2002, for the first time, the president is being chosen for a five-year term, like the National Assembly. The two sets of elections were grouped together in a short span of time in the hope voters would choose a president and a prime minister from the same camp. They may or may not do so.

The presidential election is straightforward. In the first round, the whole nation votes for one candidate from a list which, on April 21, contained 16 candidates. No candidate has obtained an absolute majority in the first round ever since the present system came into force in 1965.

So a second round between the two top candidates is held two Sundays later. The share of the votes of the candidates representing the two camps has varied over time between a maximum of 55 per cent and a minimum of 45 per cent.

The only exception was in 1969. Voters on the left were dispersed and demobilised. The second round was held between two candidates standing for similar policies - Georges Pompidou, a Gaullist, and Alain Poher, a Christian Democrat. Pompidou won.

This year, the first round, held a fortnight ago, has given another jolt to a system which usually sees the two camps interplaying and alternating in power, more or less smoothly, at different levels of government.

Disenchantment

The two main candidates, Gaullist Jacques Chirac and Socialist Lionel Jospin, had been president and prime minister, respectively, and governed together for five years. There was a perception, encouraged by public opinion polls, that they would face each other again in the second round, as, indeed, they did in 1995.

Voters suffering from various degrees of disappointment, dissatisfaction and disenchantment like to vote against the government, especially in the first round. This time they could do so only by abstaining, or by voting for one of the other 14 candidates.

Chirac and Jospin together obtained only about 36 per cent of all valid votes cast, or about 25 per cent of registered voters. Jospin did worse than he deserved. Despite his lack of charisma and stiff television image, he had governed well for five years.

It is enough to say that, under his watch, unemployment fell from 12 to nine per cent of the labour force, the budget deficit was squeezed and some taxes were reduced. He was by and large successful in governing Left-of-centre, but not in arousing enthusiasm.

A series of small shifts in traditional voting patterns sufficed to cause a political earthquake. Chirac obtained 19.9 per cent of the vote, Jospin 16.2 per cent and Jean Marie Le Pen, leader of the extreme right National Front, 16.9 per cent.

Several elections in the past 20 years indicated Le Pen`s share of the vote to be stable at 14 or 15 per cent. This had often benefited the Socialist Party. Mitterrand indirectly and repeatedly favoured the extreme right to keep the Gaullists in check. But this year, a small increase in Le Pen`s vote proved large enough to disqualify the Socialist candidate.

The result of today`s second round is not in doubt. Chirac will obtain the votes of those who voted for him in the first round. In addition, those who two weeks ago voted for moderate right-wing candidates, such as Christian Democrat Francois Bayrou and liberal Alain Madelin, were already reconciled to voting for Chirac in the second round.

But he will also get the votes of a third group - traditional Left-wing voters who either abstained in the first round or voted for Jospin and the other Left-wing candidates. Chirac`s massive majority will partly express genuine support for him and partly hostility to Le Pen.

As Chirac`s victory today has been foreseen for the past fortnight, political manoeuvres have aimed at the legislative elections in June. Practising politicians insist that elections to the National Assembly involve 577 separate elections - one for each constituency, each having its own political history rooted in local traditions.

The national vote for parties is merely an average which hides many peaks and troughs and some pockets of strength for parties figuring as small at the national level. The electoral system is also slightly different (See France goes to the polls, report of a lecture by Joseph Licari at the Alliance Francaise, The Sunday Times, April 14).

In the legislative elections, any candidate can stand in the second round if he has obtained at least one-eighth of registered voters. Negotiations can take place so that only the two best-placed candidates actually stand. But one can have three or more candidates.

At the legislative elections of 1997, National Front candidates contested the second round in 76 constituencies, thus ensuring the election of candidates of the left-wing coalition. Projections and simulations based on the results of the first round of the presidential election, which are an imperfect measuring-rod of legislative elections, suggest there may be about 300 three-sided contests in the second-round on June 16 (see Le Monde, April 24).

The Right, benefiting from the momentum of the presidential election, is already in marching order. The Gaullist Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) is trying to press-gang the Union pour la Démocratie Francaise (UDF) and Démocratie Libérale (DL) into a new party called Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle (UMP).

Having elected Chirac to the presidency, the new party would proceed to present a single candidate in each constituency at the legislative elections. This would assure it of government financing, at the expense of its component parts. Elected candidates would then join the same parliamentary group in the National Assembly until the new party becomes official in autumn.

UDF president Francois Bayrou, who polled about seven per cent of the popular vote at the first round on April 21, is resisting what he regards as an attempt by the RPR to swallow his movement. However, others in his party, such as Philippe Douste-Blazy, mayor of Toulouse and leader of the UDF`s parliamentary group, favour the new party.

The tug-of-war between Gaullists and Christian Democrats, or centrists, as they have often been called in France, has been going on since the Fifth Republic was set up in 1959. The Christian Democrats have participated in several coalition governments led by the Gaullists, but so far they have always succeeded in maintaining their independence.

The current move to form the UMP, spearheaded by Gaullist former prime minister Alain Juppé, would absorb the smaller parties in a great centre-right party, like the German CDU-CSU. Admittedly, the RPR has evolved in its own way, too. In the European parliament, candidates elected under the RPR and UDF labels sit together in the European People Party`s group, while dissident Gaullists elected on a rival souverainiste list do not.

Should the new UMP win a majority in the National Assembly, and form the government, it will be difficult to stop it from exercising increasingly tight control over its different currents.

Cohabitation again?

However, a victory for the Socialist-led coalition at the legislative elections cannot be excluded. After governing rather well, Left-wing parties have behaved correctly (in a `republican` way, as the French expression goes) since the unexpected result of April 21.

Socialists, green party members, communists and Left-wing radicals have been vocal in expressing the priority of barring the road to the extreme Right. Some have campaigned actively for Chirac, their erstwhile adversary. Of course, once Chirac wins, they will emphasise their role in his victory.

They will also call on the electorate to introduce a measure of balance in the governance of the republic and, indeed, to ensure the solidity of the anti-Le Pen front, by giving the Left camp a majority in the National Assembly. This would lead to another period of cohabitation, though the circumstances would be more difficult than what we have known in 1997-2002.

Finally, there is the worst case scenario, or what the French call the scénario catastrophe. The Right and Left camps could each win a number of seats which is just short of an absolute majority, while Le Pen`s National Front, with a handful of seats, holds the key in the hung parliament. But that is not something we should wish on the French.