Chirac Gambles Presidency As France Votes
France voted yesterday in the first round of a parliamentary election that will either renew backing for conservative President Jacques Chirac or condemn him to share power in an uneasy tandem with left-wingers.
Voting by France's 39 million electors began more briskly than in the past two National Assembly polls despite fears of mass abstentions after a lacklustre campaign.
Turnout by midday (1000 GMT) was 22.74 per cent, under sunny skies across much of the country, up from 21.4 per cent in 1993.
Also Read
Polling stations close at 8 pm (1800 GMT) when first results, and pollsters' predictions of the overall winners, will be broadcast. A runoff will take place on June 1 in districts where no candidate wins more than 50 per cent support.
Voters are choosing between the ruling centre-right, which promises reforms to scale down state control and a Socialist-led opposition pledging vigorous state job creation and a shorter working week to attack record 12.8 percent joblessness.
Opinion polls before a blackout last week showed that Prime Minister Alain Juppe's coalition was likely to retain power for the next five years, saving Chirac from awkward cohabitation with a left-wing government.
But the left was within reach of an upset. A total 6,389 candidates, including a record 1,469 women on a day coinciding with Mothers' Day in France, are standing for election to the 577-seat Assembly.
Juppe, shown by opinion polls last year to be the least popular prime minister since 1958, had to submit to an unexpected identity check when he voted in the southwestern city of Bordeaux where he is a candidate.
When a polling official asked him to identify himself, Juppe replied: Usually, it's enough to be well known. The official refused to budge, obliging Juppe to show his identity card.
Chirac, who called the vote saying France needed a new elan to help prepare for a single European currency, voted in Sarran, a village in central France.
Socialist opposition leader Lionel Jospin, who campaigned with the slogan Let's change the future, voted in Cintegabelle in the southwest where he is hoping to win re-entry to the National Assembly after losing his seat in 1993.
Many ordinary voters in Paris seemed to prefer shopping for Mothers Day dinners rather than voting