FRANCE: The campaign for 577 seats in the French National Assembly officially opened yesterday amid confusion and uncertainty. The record number of 8,633 candidates represents an increase of 32 per cent over the last election in 1997. As in the recent presidential poll, every political shade, from extreme left to extreme right, free marketeers to hunters and fishermen, is present.
There are 464 candidates in Paris alone, with the first constituency setting a record of 27 candidates for one seat in the assembly.
Three weeks before the first round on June 9th, the centre right is favoured to win, because of the departure of the socialist leader, Mr Lionel Jospin, the landslide re-election of President Jacques Chirac, and the centre-right's power in the interim government.
But political scientists say the level of abstention, voters' attitude towards the possibility of a renewed "cohabitation", and the desire for revenge among left-wing voters who supported Mr Chirac out of their greater aversion for the extreme right-wing candidate, Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, are important unknowns in the poll.
Every candidate who scores 12.5 per cent in the first round will move on to the final round on June 16th. There could be up to 250 "triangular" contests in which the presence of Mr Le Pen's National Front splits the right-wing vote, thus favouring the left. Mr Chirac would need a significant number of votes from front supporters to achieve a majority, and it is not clear whether they will be willing to support the centre-right parties which branded them as racists and xenophobes during the second round of the presidential poll.
Mr Chirac has tried to unite the centre-right within a new grouping called the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP). The UMP is fielding 536 candidates, half from Mr Chirac's moribund RPR, a quarter from its competitor the UDF. But 100 UDF candidates defied the UMP to stand alone.
Nor were attempts to establish a "United Left" successful. The socialists, communists and greens will present single candidates in only 34 constituencies, with two instead of three candidates in 136 other voting districts.
Although the "Law on Political Parity", passed two years ago, fines parties which do not present an equal number of male and female candidates, only 38.5 per cent of the candidates are women.