THE morning newspaper headlines told the story: "Chirac Trapped", said Le Parisien. "Repudiation," said France Soir in letters three inches high. Liberation printed the words "The Right Flattened" above a hall of mirrors photo of a squashed Prime Minister Alain Juppe.
Paradise Lost would have been a good title. Until he dissolved parliament on April 21st, President Jacques Chirac had an 80 per cent majority that allowed him to pass whatever laws he wanted until next March. Yesterday, in the cruel light of first round election results that showed the left had won 44.28 per cent to the right's 36.16 per cent, it seemed that Mr Chirac had botched his throw of the dice.
The debacle occurred at the very moment when Mr Chirac was poised to Ia the world leader. Today he will witness the signing by the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, and the Russian President, Mr Boris Yeltsin, of a landmark agreement between NATO and the Russian Federation. In just three weeks, Mr Chirac will join the heads of state of IS EU countries in Amsterdam to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference. A few days later he will travel to Denver for the OECD summit, then on to New York for the UN General Assembly.
Before Sunday's poll, Mr Chirac reportedly told advisers he hoped for a poor showing in the first round, to better rally the troops in the second. He got his wish - the centre right Gaullists have never, since 1958, fared so badly in a parliamentary election. The results of the June 1st runoff are far from certain, although the fact that no parliamentary majority has been returned since 1978 is a dangerous precedent for Mr Chirac.
Centre right officials have promised that Mr Chirac's Rally for the Republic (RPR) and its sister party, the Union for French Democracy (UDF), will "speak more clearly and firmly" in this last week of the campaign. It will be a harrowing operation - one faux pas and the RPR UDF are condemned to five years in opposition. The virtual resignation of Mr Juppe - who announced late" yesterday that no matter who, wins, he will cease to be Prime Minister after the second round - eliminates; one of the issues ban in over them. The stickiest outstanding question is; the coalition's attitude towards the extreme right National Front (FN).
Mr Juppe was the chief proponent of an early election, and the centre right's poor showing in the first round sealed his fate. He did his old friend Mr Chirac the favour of announcing his departure quickly, but the move leaves the RPR-UDF campaign with a lame duck campaign leader for the next six days. Mr Juppe acted as a sort of electrical fuse between the public and the president, commentators said. Now the fuse has been blown. Will Mr Chirac make his choice of a new premier known before the second round?
And will it be Mr Philippe Seguin, the outgoing speaker of parliament whom opinion polls show to be the most popular replacement?
While suspense builds over the prime ministerial appointment, the National Front - after the Socialists, the real winners of Sunday's ballot are gloating. Mr Chirac's advisers had calculated that the FN would be caught unprepared. Instead, it beat its own 1993 score of 12.3 per cent by three points and its candidates made it to the second round in a record 133 constituencies. Most of the FN's leading personalities - Messers Bruno Megret and Bruno Gollnisch, the mayor of Toulon, Mr Jean Marie Le Chevallier, Mr Le Pen's own daughter, Marie Caroline, and Mrs Marie France, Stirbois - all won high scores in the first round.
MR LE PEN abhors Mr Chirac; he called for his resignation on Sunday night, and has said he is worse than the Socialist leader, Mr Lionel Jospin. But the EN wants to arbitrate in districts where it did not reach the second round. If the centre right is to recover next Sunday, it needs to attract EN voters as well as abstentionists. The best way to do that is by exploiting, Mr Le Pen's pet theme - the evil of immigration. But if the attempt to seduce the extreme right is too transparent, it risks alienating more moderate voters.
In its last minute rush for clarity, the centre right may also explain its European policy. The RPR-UDF programme devoted a single sentence to EMU, saying it wants "to succeed in the transition to the euro on January 1st, 1999, to stimulate growth and employment". The public increasingly blames the Maastricht convergence criteria for the hardship it is enduring, especially since the left planted the idea that the criteria were arbitrarily imposed by Germany to reassure its own citizens. The centreright has so lard failed to address the question.
IN a televised speech on Europe last week, Mr Chirac tried to convince voters that if the left won, it would doom the move to the euro. This has become a popular theme in the conservative press, but it is denied by the Socialists, including the former European Commissioner, Mr Jacques Delors. In an editorial written for Le Monde, Jacques Poos, the foreign minister of Luxembourg, said he was convinced that if the Socialists come to power they will respect France's European commitments. The presence of another Socialist government, especially after the victory of Labour in Britain, could strengthen Europe's ability to enact effective social and employment policy, Mr Poos wrote. In tandem with Mr Juppe, Mr Chirac has been determined to meet the Maastricht criteria. But of the 36.16 per cent of the vote received by the right, 5 per cent came from Mr Philippe de Villiers far right traditionalist Catholic Movement for France, which is adamantly anti Europe. To the left of, the RPR, Mr Seguin - as mentioned above, tipped to succeed Mr Juppe, has a euro skeptic past. Mr Seguin would fulfil the need for a more humane, socially conscious face at Matignon. If he becomes prime minister he - like Mr Jospin - can be expected to seek a way out of the austerity which destroyed Mr Juppe.
