French Extremist Refuses to Endorse Chirac

Extreme rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen called on his cheering and chanting supporters Sunday to deny their votes to Socialist President Francois Mitterrand in the final round of the French presidential election next Sunday, but at the same time, he refused to endorse conservative Premier Jacques Chirac.

This refusal, after a week of obvious public courtship by Chirac, struck a blow to any chance the premier might have had to upset Mitterrand. Weekend polls put Mitterrand ahead by 10 to 12 percentage points.

Instead of endorsing Chirac, Le Pen, a 59-year-old former paratrooper, told a crowd of about 50,000 crammed into the Tuileries Gardens that they should make up their own minds whether to abstain or vote for Chirac. Any abstention would work in favor of Mitterrand.

Chirac was hoping that a ringing endorsement from Le Pen might push most of his supporters into the Chirac camp, but Chirac’s wooing made little headway with Le Pen, who clearly does not mind seeing the mainstream French conservative parties in disarray. In his speech, he attacked Mitterrand for his socialism, but he also attacked Chirac for cooperating with Mitterrand in the last two years in an arrangement of shared power that the French called “cohabitation.”

The speech climaxed a day in which Le Pen and his followers celebrated the joy of their extraordinary vote in the first round of the election. Le Pen shocked the politicians and analysts of France by winning 14.39% of the vote, only 5% less than Chirac and 2% less than the other mainstream conservative candidate, former Premier Raymond Barre.

For most of the week, Socialists and conservatives have been blaming each other for the rise of Le Pen. The Socialists insist that Chirac’s refusal to condemn Le Pen and Chirac’s continual attempt to co-opt some of Le Pen’s platform have lent a respectability to the extreme rightist while winning very few votes for Chirac.

The conservatives blame Socialist economic policies in 1981 for creating an economic recession that bred desperate people anxious to accept solutions promised by Le Pen.

Whatever the causes, most analysts agree that the political scene will shake with changes after election day. Chirac, if he fares as badly in the voting as some predict, has the most to lose.

Under French tradition, a premier resigns when a new or a reelected president takes office. Mitterrand has made it clear he has no intention of reappointing Chirac as premier, and Chirac has made it clear that he would refuse to serve even if Mitterrand did try to reappoint him.

For Chirac, the main question about the future, if he loses the election, turns on whether he makes a respectable enough showing to allow him to remain the leader of France’s mainstream conservatives.