Professors discuss unexpected results of recent French primary election

A panel met yesterday to discuss and evaluate the recent presidential primary election in France, in the second bowl of Robertson Hall.

In a vote that shocked French citizens and people around the world, Jean Marie Le Pen — the far-right candidate with a history of staunch nationalism and Nazi sympathy — defeated the popular Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin. During the two-hour-long forum, panelists discussed the French voting choices and the future of the country's politics.

The panelists first explained the election's surprising outcome to an overflowing audience comprising graduate and undergraduate students, faculty and foreign press.

Pascal Richie, chief Washington correspondant for the French publication Liberation, expressed the country's utter shock at the election results — the far right earned its highest ever percentage with 20 percent of the ballots, 17 percent of those votes going to Le Pen himself.

"In France, nobody saw this coming. Nobody saw this earthquake coming," Richie said.

The five panelists offered a variety of possible explanations for Le Pen's victory — including the division of the left's electorate among five candidates. The higher than usual number of candidates detracted from Socialist support, and prevented Jospin from earning the votes needed to advance in the elections.

Ezra Suleiman — professor of politics and director, of the committee for European Studies — also suggested that the results indicate a deep dissatisfaction among the poorer and younger French living outside of Paris. Because the capital city houses all of France's cultural and political life, the rest of the country feels that the government is out of touch with their concerns, he said.

"I would say that there is an element of out of touchness," Suleiman said. "There is a wide gap between the Ile de France and the rest of France."

Another possible explanation offered by Sophie Meunier — a Princeton research associate and co-author of the recent book "The French Challenge: Adapting to Globalization" — is that Le Pen played off of the public's fear of losing their national identity through globalization. Promising a France that would return to the franc, limit immigration and avoid the dangers associated with a free market economy, Le Pen appealed to a fearful public.

Regardless of its causes, the panel said Le Pen's victory was an embarrassment to the French people.During the question and answer session, two students with French citizenship expressed fear and concern over Le Pen's reputation of intolerance. Members of the panel said they thought current president Jacques Chirac would almost certainly emerge victorious in the final presidential election in June.

"I also hope it will be a blip, but I don't think it is. There is a big niche for politicians who are nostalgic for an old France," she said.

Richie closed the session by presenting a propaganda pamphlet Le Pen had distributed throughout France, in which his wife extolled his virtuous persona. As the panel and audience chuckled at the catchphrases and loaded statements, a French student shouted that the propoganda on the inside of the pamphlet was not quite as humorous as its exterior.