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                                                                                WORLD, Page 26

FRANCE

Splintering Influence


In chaotic regional elections, voters reject the entire
Establishment and give new power to Le Pen's anti-foreign,
anti-immigrant nationalists

By GEORGE J. CHURCH -- Reported by Frederick Ungeheuer/Paris


    Since Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic in
1958 and cut short 14 years of political chaos, France has been
a model of governmental stability. But last week brought back a
strong whiff of the Fourth Republic atmosphere of clashing
factions and evanescent coalitions. In elections for 22
regional councils throughout the country, voters dealt a stiff
blow to the entire political establishment and catapulted fringe
movements and personalities into new prominence; in many
councils they will cast the deciding votes. The balloting has
no direct effect on the national government; France is a highly
centralized country in which the regional councils have little
power. But the outcome does signal a public mood of sour
discontent that will make the country decidedly more difficult
for President Francois Mitterrand, or anyone else, to lead.

    Domestic gripes -- economic troubles, boredom with the
governing Socialists, anger over corruption scandals -- did most
to produce this mood. But it was intensified by, and will
further exacerbate, a more general malaise that is diluting the
country's international influence -- precisely when, at a
critical time of transition, the European Community needs Paris'
traditional leadership more than ever. The French are worried
that their country is failing to find a new role in the
post-cold war world and that within Europe it is being
overshadowed by the rise of a unified and vibrant Germany.
Should they assert themselves vigorously and strive to lead the
new Europe or retreat into a kind of Gallic stockade and
preoccupy themselves with domestic concerns? The regional
elections pointed to a distressing trend toward the second
option.

    Mitterrand's Socialist Party scarcely looks able to supply
any new leadership. It was rejected by more than four-fifths of
the voters; the party polled a dismal 18%. But the Socialists
had been expected to lose ground; the real surprise was that
voters turned their back on the right as well. The Union for
France, a coalition of the two main conservative parties,
reaped a mere 33%, down 4 points from its share in the last
regional elections in 1986. Just under half (49%) of those who
cast ballots chose to leap out of the political mainstream
altogether.

    Out on the fringes, two environmentalist parties, the
Greens and the newly formed Ecology Generation, pulled nearly
14%, more than double any previous share. The two, however, are
as much rivals as allies. Ecology Generation is led by Brice
Lalonde, who is Environment Minister in Mitterrand's Cabinet and
is called "the Pink Submarine" by his opponents; they view him
as a subversive Socialist who uses ecology as a front to promote
his ambitions. Lalonde, in turn, calls Antoine Waechter, the
leader of the Greens, a "totalitarian" who rejects all
compromise.

    The big winner, to the extent that there was any, was
extreme-right-winger Jean-Marie le Pen, leader of the xenophobic
National Front. His party also took 14% of the vote, only 4
points above its showing in the 1986 regional elections. But it
established itself as a force in every region of France and as
the most influential right-wing party in Europe. In some other
areas its representatives will be the kingmakers, deciding who
will lead closely divided councils. The Communists, once the
biggest single party in France, bottomed out with 8% of the
vote.

    The splintering could not be blamed on public apathy.
Though there had been widespread predictions that less than half
of France's voters would show up at the polls, in fact 68% did.
So the vote pointed to active disgust with traditional parties,
politicians and politics.

    It is a many-sided mood, in part contradictory. After
winning office in 1981, the Socialists engaged in a burst of
nationalization of industry that proved disastrous; ever since,
the party has followed policies so conservative that to many
voters it no longer seems to stand for anything. Mitterrand, at
75 and after nearly 11 years in power, has become an august,
remote figure (he is sometimes sarcastically called Dieu, or
God) and has seemed at times to lose his touch in foreign
affairs, to the detriment of French influence. For example, he
tried to resist German unification after the Berlin Wall fell.

    The extravagant unpopularity of Prime Minister Edith
Cresson is harder to understand. Her acid tongue -- she called
the Japanese "ants" and implied that 25% of British men were
homosexual -- got her in trouble, but more recently she has been
minding her manners. Nonetheless, her popularity has continued
to drop, dragging down Mitterrand's with it.

    Economically, the situation is mixed. France enjoys one of
the highest standards of living in the world, but the latest
figures on unemployment show a rise to a near record 9.9%.
Austerity measures have held inflation to a remarkable 3.1%,
even lower than that in Germany. But wages have risen less
still, prompting protests not just by industrial workers but
also by nurses, judges, social workers and other public
employees, leading in turn to a feeling that public order is
breaking down.

    A rash of financial scandals that prompted politicians of
both left and right to get together and grant amnesty to
themselves went far toward convincing voters that the entire
Establishment is corrupt. All this seems to point toward
political paralysis and an uncertain future, during which the
political establishment's attention is likely to be preoccupied
by jockeying for next year's parliamentary elections.

    Under present electoral procedures -- two rounds of voting
that in effect squeeze out minor parties -- last week's ballot
pattern would produce a heavy conservative majority. That would
force Mitterrand, whose seven-year term runs until 1995, to
share power with a conservative Prime Minister.

    One way for the President to avoid such "cohabitation"
might be to institute a system that would fill some or all seats
by proportional representation. That might afford at least a
thin hope of a Socialist-environmentalist coalition with enough
seats to form a government.

    But the price could be a huge increase in power for Le
Pen's National Front. It has only one parliamentary seat now,
but if last week's voting pattern were repeated under full
proportional representation, it would rocket up to 77 seats (out
of 577). A onetime student thug in the Latin Quarter who lost
an eye in a street brawl, and an ex-paratrooper who interrogated
prisoners in Algiers (he denies having tortured them), Le Pen
tries these days to project a more moderate personal image. He
dresses in dark suits and subdued neckties rather than the army
khakis he once affected. But his message is still anti-foreign,
anti-European integration and especially anti-immigrant. Under
the slogan "France for the French," Le Pen has been drawing
votes from an assortment of anachronistic cranks, former Nazi
collaborators, die-hard repatriates from Algeria and
disappointed Communists. Lately, they have been joined by a
growing number of embittered citizens who are out of work or
have to share their neighborhoods with Arab or African
immigrants and who find the newcomers' skin color, religion,
dress, music, food and customs all to be offensive.

    Any added success for Le Pen's mean and narrow nationalism
would be bound to diminish further France's influence as one of
the five countries with veto power on the United Nations
Security Council and as a leader in integration of the European
Community. And whatever happens to Le Pen, that influence is
already threatened by the prospect of a period during which the
country is increasingly absorbed in internal wrangling.