JACQUES CHIRAC CRUSHED JEAN MARIE LE PEN IN LANDSLIDE VICTORY
By Safa Haeri
PARIS 5 May. (IPS) Outgoing French conservative President Jacques Chirac
scored Sunday a landslide victory in the French presidential election after
voters from both right and left surged to the polls to keep out far-right leader
Jean-Marie Le Pen.
All three major exit polls published as the last polling stations closed at 2000 suggest that the incumbent president has won between 81% and 83% of the votes against less than 18 per cent to the 73 years-old Le Pen.
The turnout was 10% up on the first round, on 21 April, when a record abstention rate of 28% helped Mr Le Pen to beat Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin against all odds and sending shockwaves throughout Europe.
In his first speech minutes after his crushing victory over Mr. Le Pen, Mr. Chirac thanked all Frenchmen who had voted for him, said he had understood the message of the first round and promised a strong government to combat urban violence, insecurity and also reducing fiscal charges.
Crowds immediately began to celebrate at Mr Chirac's party headquarters in Paris, where the re-elected president said France had reaffirmed its "attachment to republican values" by voting against Mr Le Pen.
Admitting his defeat, Mr Le Pen accused the left and right to have "plotted" against him and calling it a defeat for "the hopes of the French" and a victory for Socialist and Communist forces.
Mr Chirac, a conservative, scored a mere 20% in the first round - a record low for a frontrunner - but his margin of victory in the second round was the biggest ever in a French presidential election.
Mr. Le Pen’s surprise victory over Mr. Lionel Jospin gave way to a national awakening of the French voters who, led by younger generation and students, many of them under the age of voting, brought a national consensus against the xenophobic Le Pen and his National Front party, with 1.3 million demonstrators pouring on to the streets on May Day.
Hours after his historic defeat, Mr. Jospin announced that he would bid farewell to political life for ever and to avoid journalists, he cast his vote in the second tour by proxy.
Analysts said the high vote scored by Mr. Le Pen in the first round was a "vote of protest and disdain" towards traditional politicians and parties, particularly with the two main contenders, Chirac and Jospin presenting similar programs.
French newspapers also broke with tradition at the weekend by calling on readers to vote for Mr Chirac.
It was the first time that the left was out of French presidential race, that the extreme right party reached the second tout and that the president, a conservative, was elected on the votes from both the right and the left, including communists and extreme left.
"It's the first time in my life I've voted for the right. It's not easy, and I'm gutted, but there's no other choice", one voter told the Reuters news agency.
As he voted, Mr Le Pen alleged that there had been a dirty tricks campaign against him, and said he wished he had called in international monitors to prevent vote-rigging.
"If I get less than 30% (of the vote) it would be a huge disappointment", he told journalists in his campaign headquarters at Sant Cloud, near Paris.
Mr Chirac has already served as president for seven years, but for most of that time he has been little more than a figurehead leader as a result of "cohabitation" with a Socialist government.
On Monday he is expected to accept the resignation of Mr Jospin, and to appoint a right-wing successor who will lead the conservatives into June's parliamentary elections.
Some observers have suggested that Mr Le Pen's success could cause the left to bounce back for the June vote - which Socialists are referring to as the "third round" of the presidential election - resulting in another period of cohabitation.
The shock first-round result has been ascribed to a number of factors, including lower than usual turnout, a record slate of 16 candidates, including eight on the left, widespread disillusionment with the mainstream political parties and overall, an increasing and alarming state of insecurity and "incivility" by youngsters, mostly of Arab and African origins in urban areas. ENDS CHIRAC PRESIDENT 5502