"Mr Chirac, 69, has been

"Mr Chirac, 69, has been damaged by persistent sleaze allegations, while Mr Jospin, 64, a stiff former professor, was seen as honest but dull."

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right French presidential candidate, has ousted Lionel Jospin, the left-wing socialist candidate, and is now seriously challenging the incumbrent French president, Jacques Chirac. I imagine that "honest but dull" suddenly seems much more alluring to millions of people in France.

One of the interesting things is the distribution of votes. I wonder why eight of the ten border provinces voted for Le Pen, whereas Chirac dominated elsewhere. Are the border areas more sensitive to any disruption to their own French identity? I wouldn't have thought so; my limited experience of the Alsace region is that its inhabitants feel more 'Alsacian' than 'French'. Maybe that's the issue - Le Pen is a Breton first and a Frenchman second.

[Update: I've read more about this today and it seems that the main reason is that the left-wing vote was split between numerous potential candidates and therefore no single socialist candidate attracted enough votes to beat Le Pen. On this basis, it's probably likely that western France is more conservative (therefore voted for Chirac), whereas eastern France is more socialist. I'm interested in understanding this better - if you can help, your input is very welcome.]

There's a cautionary tale here: always use your vote. Part of Le Pen's success is down to low turnout. I don't mean that to sound morally superior, either; I've failed to vote in the past and we've had occasional extreme right-wing candidates elected in London for similar reasons. The first time that happened, I stopped taking my right to vote for granted.

I'm going to be back in Paris for the election day (5 May), so interesting times are ahead.

Posted by Hg on Tuesday 23 April 2002 at 06:27.
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