A stunning upset by far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in France's presidential election triggered a political earthquake in France on Monday and sent shockwaves across Europe over the rise of the radical right.
Le Pen, dismissed until recently as a no-hope rabble rouser, surged into second place behind President Jacques Chirac in the first round on Sunday with 17 percent of votes, according to a count of some 95 percent of the ballot.
The National Front party leader's surprise showing ended the political career of Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
It sparked street protests by anti-racist groups across France, with youths burning banners carrying Le Pen's name on the Place de la Bastille in Paris and marching in Lyon, Grenoble, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and other cities.
Pushed into third place on 16 percent by the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe campaigner, Jospin told shell-shocked supporters he would retire from politics after a runoff on May 5 between conservative incumbent Chirac and former paratrooper Le Pen.
Chirac, 69, bidding for a second term, garnered some 19.6 percent of the vote, the lowest by far of a frontrunner in any presidential election in France since the country's Fifth Republic was founded in 1958.
Polling groups forecast that Chirac, with even the left now rallying behind him to fight off Le Pen's unexpected challenge, would win the runoff with up to 80 percent of the vote.
And, with the left effectively leaderless after Jospin's humiliating defeat, the odds rose that the center-right with Chirac at its head could win a majority in parliamentary elections to a new National Assembly in June.
Le Pen, savoring his sweetest victory in four runs at the presidency, dismissed forecasts of a May 5 rout as nonsense.
"I am convinced it is possible to beat Chirac in two weeks," the 73-year-old ultranationalist told French television.
"If voters evicted Jospin tonight, it is clearly probable they will evict Chirac in the second round," he said.
RECORD ABSTENTIONS
Le Pen, who once called the Holocaust a detail of history, appeared to have reaped the rewards of voter disaffection with the familiarity of both Chirac and Jospin, who had run dull, defensive campaigns after five years of awkward power-sharing.
A record 27 percent of the electorate abstained on Sunday, with those who did turn out casting ballots for an unprecedented 16 candidates ranging from the far left to the extreme right.
"The disillusionment and distance French people feel toward their traditional mainstream politicians...has backfired spectacularly on the French Republic," said Simon Murphy, leader of Britain's Labour Party group in the European Parliament.
"It will send a shudder across the European Union," he said.
Reflecting the shock, left-wing newspapers L'Humanite and Liberation ran one-word banner headlines that screamed NO! on the front pages of their Monday editions. The conservative daily Figaro also opted for a single word: Earthquake.
Le Pen's defeat of Jospin was the latest in a series of blows to the European left that began in Italy last year, spread to Denmark and Portugal and could engulf the Netherlands and Germany next.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats suffered a stinging defeat in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany's most economically depressed region, on Sunday in the last electoral test before national elections in September.
The conservative Christian Democrats, who back Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber against Schroeder in the September vote, emerged the clear winners in a vote that pushed the Chancellor's party into third place after eight years governing the state.
PLAYED ON FEARS
Le Pen played on fears of rising crime, Muslim immigration from North Africa and a loss of national identity due to globalization and the European Union.
His unprecedented score, added to the roughly 2.4 percent won by breakaway far-rightist Bruno Megret, meant the extreme right won nearly one vote in five.
Chirac, acknowledging the vote had exposed public disaffection, cast himself in the role of national unifier in a somber speech that portrayed Le Pen as a danger to democracy and France's international image without mentioning him by name.
"Rejection and discontent may express themselves in an election, but they cannot be the foundation for a real policy for France," Chirac said. "The time to choose is now before you. At issue is the future of France."
Jospin, punished by voters after a lackluster campaign that failed to capitalize on his government's economic achievements, called the result a "thunderbolt."
"I assume responsibility for this defeat fully and I will draw the conclusion by retiring from politics after the end of the presidential election," he said.
(China Daily April 22, 2002)
