This article originally appeared in the May 29, 1995, issue.

'On the Second You Eliminate...'

In the second round the candidate's objective is to mobilize as many people as possible against the opponent. On the left, switching votes to the Socialist standard-bearer in the name of "republican discipline" is a habit, so Jospin's task was easier. Chirac had first to mend the family quarrel and then see whether he could recover a good part of Le Pen's electorate. Finally, the two front-runners were to meet in a television debate.

Family Reunion. The Bagatelle, a park within the Bois de Boulogne, is quite far from the Metro. The crowd coming out of the underground was neither proletarian nor posh, like the surrounding district; it was in between. Nearly 30,000 gathered in a huge prefabricated structure set on the lawn. The most fascinating sight was the row of V.I.P.s on the dais. It had taken days of fierce bargaining to stage the reunion. Now all were here: Balladur next to Philippe Seguin, the populist president of the National Assembly; the highly "European" Simone Veil not far from the anti-Maastricht-mongering de Villiers. Having checked their daggers in the cloakroom, they posed awkwardly fop the family picture designed to prove that the respectable right was reunited. This backdrop was indispensable for the star of the show.

The applause reached a pitch as Chirac, tall and handsome, went to the rostrum and spoke with monotonous grandiloquence. He denied there was a split between left and right, yet spent most of his time attacking "socialism." He claimed Jospin would tax "small savers," which he knew was untrue. He was ambiguous on the European Union and vague on the economy, though he listed all the interests that would benefit from his victory. He duly emphasized the need for controls on immigration, for law and order as well as French grandeur. It was easy to see what made the man's strength, and his weakness. He could say anything and its opposite with the same air of apparent candor and conviction. I guessed that a battered and bewildered France might give in to the advances of this stubborn salesman.

As he spoke, I could not help recalling the lines of La Fontaine's fable "The Bat and the Two Weasels": "I am a bird, look at my wings.... I am a mouse, long live the rats." Chirac, however, had to do more. He not only had to reconcile the pro- and anti-Europeans, the monetarists and the dirigistes within his own divided family. He also had to convince Le Pen's electorate that what they hated most was "a third Socialist term"

Darkness at Noon. Trying to dominate the streets of Paris on May Day, Le Pen brought in supporters from all over France. More than 15,000 came. and the usual crew-cut thugs were lost in a crowd of middle-class militants yelling variations on the theme "La France aux Francais." The real danger begins when your butcher and your apparently decent neighbor are driven mad enough to vote for a party that boasts of its intention to deport 3 million foreigners and whose racist hatred of aliens carries the smell of death. In February, at the start of the campaign, militants putting up posters for the Front shot dead a young black in Marseilles. This time, in Paris, three skinhead marchers hurled a young Moroccan to his death in the Seine.

This crime was not yet known at midday at Le Pen's rally in front of the Paris Opera. Everything was ready for the climax: Joan of Arc with medieval knights on horse in front of the platform and the usual passage from Verdi's Nabucco on the loudspeakers as the leader climbed the rostrum. His opening was spoiled by a huge streamer--"Down with racism! Down with fascism!"--descending from the roof of the opera. This did not faze the rabble-rouser. He first took over St. Joan. He then tried to annex May Day; after all, if exit polls are to be trusted, his party came in first of all among the unemployed and the workers. He then proceeded with a roll call of the towns and regions where he won and it sounded quite alarming. Le Pen's strongholds are no longer limited to southern cities like Nice and Marseilles. He is consolidating his position in the industrial suburbs of northern and eastern cities ravaged by the economic crisis.

But the crowd had come to hear that the reign of the foreigners would soon be over and to be told how it should vote. Le Pen spent most of his time attacking Chirac, responsible not only for the misfortunes of farmers, workers and craftsmen but also for the growth of immigration and the sin of abortion. He devoted but a moment to Jospin, naturally evil since he is a Socialist. He then added, "Chirac--it's Jospin, only worse," a hint for militants that a Jospin victory would suit the party. To ask his right-wing electorate to cast such a "revolutionary" vote would have been too much, so Le Pen left it with a free choice. To sustain the suspense, he reserved his own decision until after the television debate between the two contenders. The indignation over the racist murder, however, deprived him, if only temporarily, of the initiative, and his official choice to vote for neither came as an anticlimax. (First estimates suggest that fewer than 20 percent of Le Pen's followers voted for Jospin; the rest were equally divided between Chirac and abstention.)

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