WHEN French voters were called to the polls for the first round of parliamentary elections on Sunday, they punished the Prime Minister, Mr Alain Juppe, and the President, Mr Jacques Chirac, in every way possible.
More than 31 per cent of voters stayed home a near record. The abstention rate was seven percentage points higher than the score reached by the front running Socialist Party.
Dozens of tiny political parties and independent candidates with no hope of winning seats in parliament received nearly 19 per cent of the vote. In addition, 15 per cent cast their ballots for the extreme right National Front; so protest votes counted for one third of the poll.
Voters also punished the centre right's party barons, many of whom consider their seats in parliament a sinecure. Only three centreright candidates were among the 12 elected in the first round, while three government ministers are in danger of losing their seats in next Sunday's runoff. They are the Budget Minister and government spokesman, Mr Alain Lamassoure; the Interior Minister, Mr JeanLouis Debre; and the Urban Affairs and Integration Minister, Mr Eric Raoult.
The ill fated Mr Juppe, who yesterday announced his imminent resignation, scored only 39 per cent in the contest for the parliament seat in Bordeaux, where he is already mayor. In greater danger of losing is Mr Jean Tiberi, President Chirac's successor as mayor of Paris. Mr Tiberi has been the centre right member of parliament for Paris's Latin Quarter since 1968. Plagued by corruption scandals, he lost 20 points from his 1993 score, and may he beaten by a Socialist Sorbonne professor, Ms Lyne CohenSolal.
Even Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former president of France, suffered the insult of being dragged to the runoff in his central French constituency for the first time in 40 years. Mr Giscard is pitted against a young woman who is standing on an ecological ticket.
The desire of French voters for change yesterday gave financial markets the jitters. The Paris Bourse fell 3.9 per cent, while the French franc was less affected because foreign investors are more exposed in shares than currency, and because of bank holidays in London and New York. Despite Sunday's rout, the consensus in the financial community is still that the centreright will win on June 1st.
That may depend on whether French voters want vengeance or merely to frighten their centreright leaders. Ms Frederique Bredin, a prominent Socialist, said that while the National Front embodied hatred, the government's attitude towards its citizens could be summarised by the word "contempt".
Many voters resented President Chirac's decision to dissolve parliament 10 months early, for what was seen as personal convenience. A draft law on social cohesion the last vestige of his 1995 promise to heal France's fracture sociale was scuttled.
Depending on the vote next Sunday, the left may get a chance to show it can do better. The Socialist Party leader, Mr Lionel Jospin, has twice surprised France - first by scoring 48 per cent against Mr Chirac in 1995, and now by bringing his party's share of the vote up from the disastrous 1993 elections to 24 per cent, the highest score achieved by any single party on Sunday.
Socialist leaders yesterday met the Communists, who received nearly 10 per cent of the vote. Mr Robert Hue, the Communist leader, denied that his party's shaky alliance with the Socialists threatens European integration. "The Communist Party is not Europhobic," he said.
After Mr Jospin was shown on French television celebrating Sunday's first round victory, Mr Guy Drut - the Minister for Sport and Youth, a former Olympic gold medal winner and the most popular member of Mr Juppe's cabinet - said a good athlete never drinks champagne at halftime.
