Phase One in France

French national politics moved toward the center Sunday, something rare for French national politics. President Francois Mitterrand, a Socialist who is now more moderate in his approach toward business than when he was first elected in 1981, finished well ahead of the more conservative Premier Jacques Chirac in the first of two rounds of voting in the French presidential election.

All this had been predicted weeks in advance, almost on the nose. What wasn’t foreseen was the strength of an ugly racist element that has been emerging in French politics. Now the centrist candidates must determine what to do about the strong showing: ignore it or confront it.

The extreme-right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, finished a strong fourth with more than 14% of the vote in a country that historically has prided itself on racial tolerance. Le Pen is anything but tolerant, an arm-waving shouter who is scapegoating North African immigrants as the cause of French unemployment, housing problems and whatever else nasty comes to his mind.

Le Pen’s candidacy provided a focal point for discontent among a French population that is still undergoing change from a largely rural nation that not that long ago had a rigid class system and wildly diverse political ideologies. Today’s France has a technologically based economy and far weaker class and family ties than it had a generation or two ago; those changes leave some voters feeling uneasy and threatened.

How Le Pen’s vote divides in the runoff election May 8 could determine the outcome of the election. He plans to tell his followers May 1 what he wants them to do in that election.

Polls show that about 70% of the French find Le Pen’s views distasteful. But the only politician who has said so is Communist Party leader Georges Marchais, saying: “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.”