Mitterrand Wins 1st Round; Extremist in Strong Showing

President Francois Mitterrand finished far in front in the first round of the French presidential election Sunday and called on all voters to help him defeat Premier Jacques Chirac, the battered and distant runner-up, in the final round in two weeks.

The mathematics of the first round results appeared to favor Mitterrand, a Socialist, in the May 8 runoff. But most of the attention of French political commentators on national television focused less on the possible future victory of Mitterrand than on the surprising total of votes amassed in the first round by extreme-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Le Pen, who exploited a wave of French resentment against North African immigrants in his histrionic campaign, finished in fourth place with more than 14% of the vote, just a few percentage points behind the two main conservative candidates, Chirac and former Premier Raymond Barre.

With 96% of the 31 million votes counted at 3:30 a.m. today, the returns showed:

Mitterrand, 33.95%

Chirac, 19.88%

Barre, 16.57%

Le Pen, 14.49%

Communist Andre Lajoinie, 6.8%

One environmentalist and three leftist candidates, 8.3%.

A few minutes after television projections predicted that Mitterrand and Chirac would face each other in the runoff, Barre, in a joint television appearance with Chirac, pledged his full support to the latter and called on his backers to switch their vote to the premier in the second round.

But neither the 55-year-old Chirac nor his main backers could hide their disappointment that he had taken no more than perhaps 20% of the vote and would need far more than Barre’s support to overtake the 71-year-old Mitterrand in the second round.

Le Pen, who called his score a “true political earthquake and a radical transformation of the national landscape,” said that he will tell his supporters at a massive May 1 rally in Paris (dedicated to the memory of Joan of Arc) what he wanted them to do in the runoff.

But much of the Le Pen vote is regarded as a protest statement coming from all over the political spectrum, and most French political analysts believe that half of these voters, no matter what Le Pen says, will either abstain or vote for Mitterrand on May 8.

It was not clear whether an outburst of violence in the French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia on the eve of the election had helped swell the total of Le Pen’s votes. Some television commentators speculated that voters, angered by the killing of three French gendarmes Friday by Melanesian separatists in the territory, might have switched to Le Pen, but this was difficult to assess.

Criticism From Communist

Many Socialist and conservative leaders blamed the unexpectedly high Le Pen vote on each others’ policies but, at the same time, tried hard not to heap scorn on French voters who had cast their ballot for the former paratrooper. They obviously did not want to alienate them in the second round. Only long-time Communist leader Georges Marchais, with little to lose, said what may have been on the mind of many other French politicians.

“Many workers and many young people voted for Le Pen,” Marchais said. “France has no reason to be proud that a candidate with so much racism and xenophobia could win so many votes. His score is dishonorable for a country like France.”

Marchais had good reason for his bitterness. Analysts, studying polls before the election, insisted that perhaps a quarter of Le Pen’s potential voters were former Communists convinced by his argument that France’s huge unemployment stems from the number of immigrants in the country.

Whatever the cause, the results represent a historical debacle for the Communists. Once the largest party in France, the Communists received the lowest percentage of vote in any election since the party was founded almost 70 years ago.

Although the total vote of the three right-wing candidates was slightly higher than that of Mitterrand and all the leftist candidates, the breakdown did not favor Chirac. Analysts believe that, besides losing many Le Pen voters, Chirac also will lose a smaller but significant number of supporters of Barre, a center-right politician who has often been uncomfortable with some of the policies of Chirac’s rightist, Gaullist party, the Rally for the Republic.

Chirac, a Survivor

And Chirac, despite predictions in the polls, failed to dominate the conservative vote but finished only barely ahead of both Barre and Le Pen. Instead of looking like a fast finisher with a good deal of momentum behind him, Chirac now looks like no more than a survivor who has just managed to stay ahead of the secondary pack.

A poll of voters by Antenne 2, the French government’s main television channel, on Sunday night put Mitterrand ahead of Chirac in the runoff by 55% to 45%.

In a short, televised address to the nation after his victory, Mitterrand once more sounded his campaign theme, implying that he is the only candidate able to unite the French people. In serious but confident tones, he called on all voters to join him “in the battle for the unity of France around democracy, progress, social justice, equality of opportunity and, finally, respect for others.”

He said that France faces two great tasks ahead--the building of Europe and the cause of peace--and he urged the French “to rally together” to meet them.

A sobered Chirac, after thanking Barre for his support, made it clear in his brief television address that he will try to rally all conservative voters around him to defeat Mitterrand. He, in fact, promised to combat many of the ills of society often painted by Le Pen: criminality, insecurity, the loss of national identity and illegal immigration.