News Analysis: Voter Apathy Overshadows French Election

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 20, 2002

News Analysis: Voter Apathy Overshadows French Election

With only one month away from the French presidential election, opinion polls reveal a large degree of apathy among French voters, who, analysts say, are bored by the same old faces in the campaign.

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With only one month away from the French presidential election, opinion polls reveal a large degree of apathy among French voters, who, analysts say, are bored by the same old faces in the campaign.

A survey released on Tuesday showed 47 percent of the French people are barely interested and 13 percent not interested at all in the elections which pits incumbent President Jacques Chirac against his main challenger Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

According to the survey jointly conducted by IPSOS, a multinational research group, French daily Le Figaro and French radio Europe 1, both rivals have lost six to seven percent in personal support ratings after Chirac kicked off his re-election drive in February and Jospin followed into the race one week later.

Voter apathy is mainly due to the boredom with a too familiar look of the election campaign and the lack of fundamental differences in the campaign platforms of the two main rivals, analysts said.

The Gaullist Chirac the Socialist Jospin, who have been political fixtures for decades, have endured the awkward power- sharing arrangement of "cohabitation" since Jospin won control of parliament in 1997.

Most of the 16 minor candidates, except a couple of independent figures, are also old faces for French voters.

Arlette Laguiller, 61, of the Trotskyite Worker's Struggle, Robert Hue, 57, leader of the Communist Party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, 73, head of the ultra-right National Front, and Noel Mamere, the 53-year-old Green Party candidate, are all bidding for the French top post for a second, third or even a fifth time.

Jean-Pierre Chevenement, once considered a "third man" that must be taken seriously, seemed to be injecting life into the too familiar campaign with his exquisite contempt to the " indistinguishable pair" in his term-- Chirac and Jospin.

But he seems to be losing magic as well. He was 72 years old and has been predominant on the political stage as former industry, education, defense and interior ministers under several Socialist governments. The Tuesday poll brought vote intentions for him down to 9 percent from a previous peak of 15 percent.

The poll findings since February showed both Chirac and Jospin increasingly dominate the campaign and each would get close to a quarter of the votes in the first round of elections scheduled for April 21.

For the second round on May 5, when all minor candidates are eliminated, the polls gave the two heavyweights votes about 50 percent each, with a slight switch favoring this or the other.

Chirac on Tuesday dismissed as "unrealistic" Jospin's campaign pledges released on Monday, which promises to cut income tax, reduce unemployment, eradicate homelessness and crack down on rising crimes.

Last week, 64-year-old Jospin described 69-year-old Chirac as " tired, old, passive and suffering from a certain weariness," on which the Gaullist followers of Chirac quickly launched counterattacks.

Reports said the two top contenders made no secret of their chilly ties last weekend when they attended the European summit in Barcelona, Spain, although they were at pains to show they could represent France "with one voice." It was the last of their joint public appearance before the coming presidential elections.

Bitter squabbles between the pair about whose proposition works better or who copied whose plan actually added to voters' doubt -- whether the two are de facto six-of-one, or half-dozen-of-the- other on policy. There are striking similarities in their manifestos, both based on tax cuts and getting tough on crimes.

The fact that ultra-right candidate Le Pen had not collected enough signatures to support his bid is an example that local elected officials in France are not interested in the seemingly intense ideological war amid the election campaign.

All French presidential candidates have to back their bids with 500 signatures from elected officials -- local mayors, regional councilors, parliamentary members or senators -- from 30 of the 96 regions in France.

"Even big parties had difficulty getting mayors to sign up because they are on a sort of strike," said Jean-Louis Borloo, spokesman for the center-right Union for French Democracy, which nominated Francois Bayrou as its presidential candidate.

Mayors are less ideologically bound up with national movement and more concerned over practical local solutions, said Borloo.

Bayrou pointed out in November: "In France, the people in power never leave. They kept coming back with the same act, the same failures and the same men... It is the root of the French disease. " He himself was former education minister for several years in the 1990s.

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