Dominique Schnapper
LETTER FROM PARIS
The reelection of Franc;:ois Mitterrand was assured by the
results of the first round of the presidential elections. The only
uncertainties had to do with the size of his victory. During the
minutes that preceded the official announcement, a group of family
and friends assembled around our television were forecasting the
results: the most pessimistic among us predicted between 59% and
60 %; all the other opinions were between 53 % and 55 %; the Presi-
dent received 54.5% of the votes.
Franc;:ois Mitterrand, who in 1981 was elected on the strength
of his common program with the communists, in 1981 and 1982
abandoned himself to the delusions of a mythical French left-sym–
bolized by its references to
J
aures and Blum and the visit to the Pan–
theon: nationalizations of large enterprises, rent control, property
taxes, efforts to abolish private schooling in the name of nondenom–
inationalism. Franc;:ois Mitterrand was the first one sinee 1947
to
take communist deputies into his government: in 1988 he won as
the centrist candidate - a situation of which successively Giscard
d'Estaing, Barre, and Chirac had dreamed. The President, who had
reached the lowest level of popularity of any president ever in office,
also is the first President of the Fifth Republic to receive a second
'I
mandate. What's more, his score constitutes nearly a record: only
Pompidou, in 1969, faced by the weak and moderate Poher, and De
Gaulle, in 1965, at the moment of his glory, did better.
Behind this political achievement hides a revolution of the
French political landscape that cannot fail to raise some questions or
some unease. The result of the first round brought a real shock. Let
us recall the essential numbers: Mitterand, 34% ; Chirac, 20 %;
Barre, 16.5%; Le Pen, 14.5; Lajoinie (PFC), 6%; the other left
parties, 9
%.
In other words, the entire moderate or "governmental"
right barely received more than Mitterrand alone. And he auto–
matically brought with him the majority of the left votes and, thanks
to
his centrist position, could not help but receive some of Barre's
and Le Pen's votes. The traditional division among the French right,
the objective differences among the three electorates of Barre,
Chirac, and Le Pen, prevented the transfer of these votes
to
Chirac.
Thus the ultimate success was certain from the results of the first
round.
