The Electronic Telegraph 25 April 1995 WORLD NEWS

Le Pen's shadow looms over rivals for the Elysee

By Suzanne Lowry in Paris

M Chirac, who came second with 20.1 per cent of the vote, still looks likely to win on May 7, but the good score of the Socialist, 23 per cent, indicates that the final result could be close.

It also means that the last two weeks of the campaign will be fought under the shadow of the extreme-Right leader of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who polled 15.1 per cent, his highest score ever, and has eagerly offered himself as unwelcome arbiter.

This is an embarrassment to the candidates: both the Jospin and Chirac camps want to acquire M Le Pen's voters without being tainted by contact with the man himself. In the face of this as much as the Socialist challenge, partisans of Edouard Balladur, who came third with 18.58 per cent and has been eliminated, moved swiftly to transfer their loyalty to M Chirac and said they would wage "an active campaign" on his behalf.

The two Gaullist leaders are understood to have buried their rivalry in a very cordial telephone conversation yesterday. M Chirac thanked M Balladur for his unambiguous position and said he wanted the biggest possible rallying of "all the forces who do not want a third seven years of Socialism".

Balladur said his support for M Chirac was unconditional

Raymond Barre, former prime minister and a distinguished Centrist who was once tipped for the presidency, declared his support for M Chirac.

All this, plus recovery of some of the protest votes for smaller candidates, should be enough to carry M Chirac through but it is now clear that the split in the ruling Right-wing majority has come close to losing it the presidency and may yet prove to have done so.

M Chirac yesterday wrote to Right-wing members of the National Assembly calling on them to set out to make the French see that their choice was "between M Jospin, actor in and heir to 14 years of Socialist presidency which were characterised by a strong increase in unemployment, exclusion, corruption and a rise in crime and lawlessness", and himself, the candidate who "incarnates change and the only one to reply to people's questions and anxieties".

Pollsters have been among the main casualties of the first round

Opinion polls suggesting that M Chirac would enjoy a winning marging of much as 20 per cent were being swept aside yesterday by supporters and commentators. Indeed, the pollsters have been among the main casualties of the first round and their methods are being angrily called in question in the aftermath.

It seems that during the last days of the campaign some polls were indicating that M Jospin had close to 30 per cent support but because the figures were corrected according to norms, this was over-reduced to around 20 per cent.

The arithmetic of the actual vote showed that the Right-wing candidates - the two Gaullists, with M Le Pen and Philippe de Villiers - polled 60 per cent of the vote, the Left 40 per cent.

But it is already clear that M Chirac cannot be sure of getting all or even the majority of M Le Pen's vote. By the same token, not all Balladur people will back him.

Observers fear a deeper divide

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