National Front support divides centrist parties

The power of the extreme rightwing National Front (FN) and the disintegration of the centre-right opposition reached alarming proportions yesterday when Mr JeanMarie Le Pen's party, which received 15.27 per cent of the vote in last Sunday's regional elections, helped elect five of 17 new regional presidents.

Four of the new presidents were expelled from the centre-right Union for French Democracy (UDF) immediately after they obtained office with the help of FN votes. The ostracised politicians are: Mr Jacques Blanc, president of the Languedoc-Roussillon region; Mr Charles Baur in Picardie; Mr Bernard Harang in the central region near Orleans and Mr Charles Millon in RhoneAlpes. The president of Burgundy, Mr Jean-Pierre Soisson, from a small right-wing party, was also elected with the support of the FN.

Mr Le Pen, the FN leader, calls the Nazi genocide against the Jews "a detail of history", wants to expel three million immigrants from France and rescind the Maastricht Treaty. The FN has said it would welcome outcast centre-right politicians.

Mr Millon's acceptance of FN support was especially serious because he is considered close to President Jacques Chirac, who spoke out against compromises with the FN on Thursday. Mr Millon was defence minister in the last centre-right government, which lost power in the June 1997 parliamentary election. RhoneAlpes is the second richest and second most populous region in France.

Mr Millon incorporated Mr Le Pen's "minimum programme" in his election platform, whereupon the local FN leader, Mr Bruno Gollnisch, called on all 35 FN councillors in the region to vote for him. When the results were read out, leftist councillors shouted slogans comparing Mr Millon to the second World War collaborator, Mr Maurice Papon.

A fifth UDF leader, Mr JeanFrancois Humbert in FrancheComte, resigned immediately after FN councillors helped to elect him "with votes I never asked for". Mr Humbert received congratulations from Rally for the Republic (RPR) and UDF headquarters, and his region will hold a new election in one month. The RPR boasted that none of its regional presidents were elected with the help of the FN. Yet earlier this week, former secretary general of the RPR, Mr JeanFrancois Mancel, was expelled after making an alliance with the FN.

Although Socialist-CommunistEcologist coalition of the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, won more votes than the centre-right in the March 15th poll, the "plural left" gained only three of the 17 regional presidencies decided yesterday. "Our fears were justified," the Socialist party leader, Mr Francois Hollande, said. "We have been robbed of regions we should have won - that is serious. Despite warnings from the President and Prime Minister and national leaders of the RPR and UDF, it was impossible to convince a certain number of important RPR and UDF leaders [not to strike deals with the FN]."

Negotiations in ProvenceAlpes-Cote d'Azur continued last night. The centre-right is in such confusion that it boycotted yesterday's poll in the three remaining mainland regions, which will elect their presidents on Monday.