Le Pen prepares for defeat

Jean Marie Le Pen prepared his supporters for defeat at his final press conference in Paris yesterday.

He railed against what he called a laundry list of frauds being perpetrated against him to ensure he loses in tomorrow’s French Presidency election.

The final opinion poll predicts he will get between 15% and 24% of the vote in the second round against incumbent Jacques Chirac.

That is an increase on the 16.86% he got just three weeks ago when he stunned France and the world by knocking out Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

While his margin was just .68% over Mr Jospin, its effect was described as an earthquake.

It has led to weeks of demonstrations with an estimated 1.3 million turning out to protest against the 73 year old National Front leader on May 1, last Wednesday.

Mr Chirac however is set to make history when he gets up to 80% of the vote - the biggest ever won by a candidate in modern democracy. Such figures are usually reserved for dictators in single-party Soviet states or rigged African elections.

He has already made electoral history in the first of the two rounds of voting in this election when his 19.88% share of the vote was the smallest ever for a serving French president.

However there are those who caution against too much euphoria ahead of Sunday’s vote. While the 69 year old Gaullist is assured of victory that will not be the final word on the issue of far right politics in France.

In a country where 50% of the population normally vote for the left, it will be difficult for many to cast their vote for the ring-wing Mr Chirac. Even defeated Mr Jospin could not bring himself to publicly ask his supporters to vote for the man he shared government with for the last five years.

He confined himself to urging for a vote against the former paratrooper, Mr Le Pen.

There are more than just political reasons too why many will find it difficult to vote for Mr Chirac. He has used his office to avoid answering questions on what he did with public funds while he was Mayor of Paris and whether he was involved in vote rigging.

Another term with the biggest ever mandate for a French president will ensure he continues to avoid the questions of the prosecutor.

The crude home-made posters on sheets of brown cardboard at the May Day parades put it clearly "To hell with Le Pen and to jail with Chirac", they said. However the reality was put by others who declared "Better a crook than a fascist".

The crux is that with a president elected just one half of the French national electoral process will be complete. The second, and now even more vital one, will be the lower house National Assembly elections in June.

The question now is what kind of Assembly the electorate will partner Mr Chirac with, and by how much politicians, fearful of losing ground to the far right, will adopt National Front anti-immigrant strategies to get elected in June

The power of the president has been diluted since Charles de Gaulle tailor-made it for himself over 50 years ago when he had power for all the portfolios and just delegated to his prime minister.

While Mr Chirac retained responsibility only for defence and foreign policy, he will choose the prime minister and will feel he has a very free hand with the support expected for him in Sunday's vote.