Skip to main content
The largest online newspaper archive
A Publisher Extra® Newspaper

St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 9

Location:
St. Louis, Missouri
Issue Date:
Page:
9
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

3 MAY 61995 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH NEWS ANALYSIS SATURDAY, MAY 6. 1995 13B Ms French Election Draws Near, Cynicism Reigns Socialist Jospin Is Narrowing Gap; 'There Is Real Chirac Says resident est By David Crary Associated Press Writer PARIS 'HE FRENCH, WHO ELECT a president only once every seven years, make their choice Sunday in a climate of unusually deep cynicism and divisiveness. -s I if r' JJh 4 A I r. i itmi-fiirB Jacques Chirac, the conservative mayor of Paris, is narrowly favored over Socialist Lionel Jospin, but neither has generated much enthusiasm outside the core of partisan supporters.

Polls cannot be published in France during the last week before an election, but surveys conducted for Swiss media show Josplo pulling almost even. "There is a real danger" that Jospin can win, Chirac told the conservative dailL Figaro. JoSpin won 23.3 percent and Chirac 20.8 percent in the nine-candidate first round April 23 lower scores than any past candidate who went on to become president. Almost 40 percent of first-round votes went to fringe parties, ranging from the Communists to the extreme-right National Front. "The new president's mission will be to glue the pieces of France back together," wrote Alain Genestar, a political commentator.

"Never has a first rouijtt shown the electorate so divided. Never has rejection of the political establishment been so massive." Sunday's winner will be France's first new president since 1981, and there will be relief as well as nostalgia at the departure of Socialist President Francois Mitterrand. Although he remains widely respected, Mitterrand is ailing with prostate cancer and lacked the energy in recent years to sustain political initiatives. Chirac has been mayor of Paris for 18 years and has lost presidential races twicf In 1981, Jospin succeeded Mitterrand as Socialist Party leader. He later served as education minister for four years.

Both are familiar to voters, and neither is expected to pursue abrupt changes, domestically or internationally. Yet both claim to be the candidate of "change." Jospin, 57, depicted himself as "a modern man" matched against "a conservative of the old generation." Chirac, 62, urged an end to 14 years of Socialist presidency. Basic arithmetic gives Chirac an advantage, because 60 percent of the first-round votes went to right-of-center candidates. The last polls published in France gave him a 55 percent to 45 percent edge, but one-fifth of the voters expressed uncertainty. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front leader who won 15 percent of the firsfcround votes, has asked supporters to cast blank ballots Sunday.

He says neither Chirac nor Jospin has the courage to confront illegal immigration, which Le Pen blames for rising crime and 12.2 percent unemployment. Chirac and Jospin would not woo far-right voters with explicit concessions and both joined the chorus of outrage after a Moroccan immigrant was killed by skinheads Monday during a National Front rally. Both candidates face challenges if elected. For Jospin, the task would be immense dissolving Parliament and calling new legislative elections in the hope that the left could expand its meager 20 percent share of seats. iNEL JOSPINf YUUSIDENT 11 i-'.

AP Supporters of Socialist presidential candidate Lionel Jospin paste up campaign posters over an advertisement in Paris Friday. 5, Chirac advanced to the runoff only after a bitter battle with conservative Premier Edouard Balladur, who is stepping down, and would need to accommodate Balladur's center-right partisans to keep the majority at peak effectiveness. Sunday's winner is likely to face immediate pressure from organized labor. Both candidates said the fight against unemployment should not lead to lower wages, and unions are certain to campaign hard for pay increases. Call PostLine, 923-2323, for updates.

Tap in 401 5 Le Pen's Anti-Immigrant Message Welcomed By Elaine Ganley Associated Press Writer HENGWILLER, France HERE ARE NO JACKBOOTS or shaved Ti heads in Hengwiller, not even any crime. There are just equal doses of pride and Sf A "7 'j A t- Cfe-. A rr-- 'A. A 'It MrMt care of the real problems." Jean-Claude Richez, a professor of contemporary history at the University of Metz, in Lorraine, says urbanization is one of the root causes of Le Pen's strong score in Alsace-Lorraine, southeast France and the Lyon region. In the once rural region of Alsace, he said, people have been uprooted as many money-losing farms disappear.

"People here were always close to the land the rural myth, the church bells. You were at home," Richez said. "Now, rural life exists only in the head." The cows still graze on the hillsides of Hengwiller, but they are tended by people from out of town. The villagers leave each morning to work at factories in Strasbourg or Saverne. The folks in Alsace have themselves become immigrants, "but in their own land," Richez said.

Ludwig, the security agent, says, "An authoritarian government for once could do some good for France, put down some order." He is not put off by the often violent skinheads attracted to Le Pen's agenda, or the drowning of a Moroccan on Monday by skinheads who were taking part in the National Front leader's march through Paris. "If it had been five Arabs who threw a Frenchman in the water, we wouldn't have heard anything about it here," Ludwig said. the mayor says. Except for a chimney fire last year and a car that got broken into, life in Hengwiller is uneventful but good. But trouble is brewing down the road, in Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament, and next door in Saverne, the local commercial center.

"We all know that foreigners are mixed up in 90 percent of the crime," said Alain Ludwig, 34, of Hengwiller, a security agent and volunteer fireman who voted for Le Pen. He bought a husky dog to take on his patrols in nearby towns. "Le Pen is the only candidate in ftjvor of expelling delinquent foreigners after they've served their time," Ludwig said. Experts say Le Pen's success comes largely from a rising sense of insecurity in France, including a 12.2 unemployment rate that he attributes to immigrants stealing jobs. But there are no foreigners living in Hengwiller or in Bissert, further north, where Le Pen got 46 percent of the vote.

"There is no rational explanation for this phenomenon," said the Rev. Henri Fichter of Harskir-chen, a Protestant clergyman serving Bissert. He notes that Alsace, a region that has changed hands between France and Germany five times since 1870, is traditionally conservative and, as a border region, has been exposed to influxes of foreigners. "In a crisis period, people are trying to reforge their identity," Fichter said. The Le Pen vote "is a warning, a message addressed to politicians to take shame among simple folk whose village ranks as the top supporter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the extreme-right leader.

Hengwiller gave 47 percent of its vote to Le Pen in the first round of presidential elections April 23. This pretty little patch of Alsace now stands as the symbol of a fracture tugging at the fiber of France. "A little village is like a family, but I wouldn't have thought they'd vote like that," said Doris Blaes, whose husband, Marcel, is mayor. "It was revolting." Le Pen's record 15 percent national score in the first round presidential ballot gave him leverage in Sunday's runoff vote between Jacques Chirac, the conservative contender, and Socialist Lionel Jospin. But he says he will cast a blank ballot to show his disdain for both candidates and predicts that many of his supporters will follow suit.

Le Pen was able to exercise the kind of political muscle he has long sought because of, in large measure, the strong showing of his anti-immigration National Front on France's eastern flank, in Alsace and Lorraine. His'strongest showing was in Hengwiller, with 123 registered voters. Everyone is asking why. Villagers do not even talk politics in Hengwiller, AP Jacques Chirac, the conservative candidate, extends a hand Friday to supporters in Chambery, in the French Alps. Chirac, faces Lionel Jospin on Sunday.

Tories Bear Brunt Of Conservative Town's 'Disgust' By Robert Barr Associated Press Writer LONDON ISGUSTED OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS" lv-j rA- I is a British archetype: the sort of conserv "We have done what we believe is right for the country, and clearly last night's results show that thus far we have failed to persuade the country of that." As Britain began its official commemorations of V-E Day on Friday, the plight of the Conservatives recalled the fate of Winston Churchill RO vpars aim. Chnrrhill flip Tnrv "People in this country have been crying out for a sensible, mainstream alternative to the Conservatives, and now they have got one," declared Tony Blair, 41, the Labor leader who has ditched old socialist policies to make his party more attractive to middle-class voters. The Conservatives, or Tories, pulled 25 percent of the vote overall, just ahead of the centrist Liberal ative, home-owning English subject who Telegraph, which have been increasingly critical of Major. In Radford's district, he said, "John Major is going down very well." But Walter Clary, a re-elected Labor candidate, said national issues mattered. He said Major had alienated voters by imposing a sales tax on heating fuels, by toying with selling the Post Office and by changing the National Health Service.

He rejected Conservative claims that their policies were not properly understood. "We know what the policies are, and we're fed up with them," Clary said. The origin of jokes about "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" is obscure, but the British Broadcasting Corp. appropriated the phrase for a radio program in the 1970s. The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Popular Phrases quotes the program's host, Derek Robinson, as saying: "Why Tunbridge Wells was considered to be stuffier than, say, Virginia Water or Maidenhead, I don't know." Blair writes letters to newspapers denouncing unwelcome new trends.

I Now the town of Tunbridge Wells is disgusted with he governing Conservative Party, an alarming turn in Hie fortunes of John Major's deeply unpopular government. As the last votes were counted Friday from local elections in England and Wales, Royal Tunbridge Wells, 35 miles southeast of London, was among 59 towns and districts that turned Conservatives out of power. It was a horrendous night for the party that has governed Britain for 16 years. The Conservatives won sontrol of just eight of the 346 councils and lost 59 they field previously. In its best performance in 30 years, the Labbr Party took control of 155 councils, up from 93.

Major leader, was defeated in a Labor Par ty landslide two months after the war ended in Europe. Conservatives in Tunbridge Wells, who had controlled the council as long as anyone could remember, claimed national issues had nothing to do with their defeat. One Conservative, Daisy Fletcher, attributed her two-vote loss to long lines at the polling stationl Rikki Radford, another defeated Conservative, blamed the media particularly traditionally conservative national newspapers such as The Times and The Daily Democrats. It was the Tories' worst showing this century, and they lost 1,768 of the 3,834 seats they were defending. Labor gained 1,521 seats, for a total of 5,639.

But most ominous for Major was a string of defeats in southern England, in places, like Tunbridge Wells, that had been the party's secure base. "I have no excuses to make to you about last night's election results," Major said to reporters Friday outside his office at No. 10 Downing Street. 4 Russia Is Taking 4A Step Backwards' To Nuclear Arms, Nunn Says; By the Associated Press WASHINGTON I USSIA IS turning back to nuclear weapons as the backbone of its mili- tary force and strategy, Sen. Sam Arms Control Association, a private non-prpf- j' it group, said the expected Senate ratification of the 1993 Strategic Arms Reduction Trea- ty might not be matched by ratification in the Russian Duma, or legislature.

Hard-line elements in the military and tlieJ Duma argue that with NATO likely to expaM toward Russia's borders and with China mqtt-; ernizing its military, this is no time to furth disarm. For instance, Defense Secretary William Perry said this week that 2,400 nuclear warheads had been removed from missiles and bombers under U.S.-Russian treaties, ahead of the schedule. And on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry's No. 2 official toured Capitol Hill, meeting with lawmakers in support of the so-called Nunn-Lugar program, co-written by Nunn and Sen. Richard Lugar, which provides U.S.

aid for Russian nuclear dismantlement. But others see worrisome trends. Dunbar Lockwood, a researcher at the substantially, I think they're going to move to rely almost predictably, more and more on nuclear weapons," Nunn said at a hearing on future U.S. military strategy and planning. "I believe a few months from now our intelligence community will be reporting to us that their doctrine is going to be changing because of the weakness in Russian conventional forces," Nunn said.

Pentagon officials have been watching Russian nuclear policy closely for more than a year. In November 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin adopted a doctrine that, for the first time, declared his willingness to use nuclear weapons if Russia or its allies were attacked with conventional weapons. Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon's top official in charge of military force assessment, said in a brief interview after the hearing that the new Russian doctrine "showed, I think, some retreat at least on the part of the military, arguing that they could not give up first use of nuclear weapons and that sort of thing." President Bill Clinton is to visit Moscow next month. The administration has been praising Russia for its dismantling of nuclear weapons. Nunn said Friday.

5Snh, the ranking Democrat on the Senate ArflHJd Services Committee, stopped short of wajrong of a renewed Cold War. But he said thatiirterms of military policy and technol-ogyrihe Russian move was "a step backwards." "Their demoralized military and conventional forces having gone down very, very The START II nuclear weapons treaty calls on the Russians to dismantle some of their most modern multi-warhead missiles, a move criticized by some in Russia..

Get access to Newspapers.com

  • The largest online newspaper archive
  • 300+ newspapers from the 1700's - 2000's
  • Millions of additional pages added every month

Publisher Extra® Newspapers

  • Exclusive licensed content from premium publishers like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  • Archives through last month
  • Continually updated

About St. Louis Post-Dispatch Archive

Pages Available:
4,169,865
Years Available:
1849-2024