Le Pen faces Chirac after stunning upset

The leader of France’s extreme right National Front party Jean Marie Le Pen has achieved a stunning first round presidential election result forcing voters to choose between him and conservative incumbent Jacques Chirac.

Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, disqualified after placing third in yesterday’s vote, called the performance of Mr Le Pen a ‘‘thunderbolt’’ and announced his retirement from politics.

Mr Le Pen’s second-place showing is a ‘‘very disturbing sign for France and for our democracy’’, Mr Jospin said, choking back emotion.

The 73-year-old National Front leader insisted he would emerge victorious from a second-round vote on May 5.

The silver-haired former paratrooper now in his fourth presidential race, has been a fixture in French politics for decades. But few could imagine that he would reach the final round in the contest for the country’s top office.

Eyeing the runoff, Mr Le Pen made a broad appeal to the French, ‘‘whatever their race, their religion or their social condition, to rally to this historic chance for national redressment’’.

Scores of polls leading up to the vote consistently showed Mr Chirac, 69, and Mr Jospin, 64, taking the top two slots. Only recently did Mr Le Pen even solidly emerge as the so-called third man, the kingmaker.

With more than 99% of the vote counted, Mr Chirac had 19.7%, Mr Le Pen 17.06% percent and Mr Jospin 16.05%, according to the Interior Ministry.

A record 16 candidates stood in the election and the abstention rate of some 28% also was a record, Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant said.

Voter apathy and the fragmented field punished Mr Jospin and rewarded Mr Le Pen, boosting him beyond the 15% that he and his party traditionally score in national elections.

Rising crime and the central role it took in the campaign appeared to be another factor in the National Front leader’s success.

Mr Chirac put public insecurity at the top of his campaign platform. At a campaign meeting, he referred to the massacre in late March of eight suburban city council members by a deranged gunman as an example of the left’s failure to address rising crime.

Mr Le Pen has long been accused of racism and anti-Semitism. In 1987 he was fined for describing the gas chambers in which millions were killed in the 1930s and 1940s by the German Nazi regime as ‘‘a detail’’.

Thousands gathered in Paris early today to protest Mr Le Pen’s showing to cries of: ‘‘We are all the children of immigrants’’ or ‘‘Down with the National Front’’. A few thousand marched toward the presidential Elysee Palace but were dispersed with tear gas.

Demonstrators gathered in other cities, from Marseille in the south, to Lille in the north, to Strasbourg in the east.

The National Front was founded by Mr Le Pen in 1972. It uses the slogan ‘‘French First’’ and has struck a chord among voters who fear that the French identity is being sacrificed to immigration, particularly Muslims from Africa.

Champagne bottles stayed corked at Mr Chirac’s campaign headquarters as a sombre president called for national unity.

‘‘I call on all French men and women to gather to defend human rights,’’ Mr Chirac said in a brief speech. ‘‘At risk is our national cohesion, the values of the Republic. France needs you, and I need you.’’

Representatives of numerous leftist parties announced their decision to vote for Mr Chirac in the second round to stop the National Front leader.