By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, March 8, 2001; Page A15
PARIS -- Local elections in Paris are usually predictable affairs, with city hall staying firmly in the grip of the political right and the biggest issues being the lack of parking spaces and the proliferation of dog droppings on the sidewalk. But this year's election may bring an upset as remarkable as a Republican becoming mayor of Washington.
For the first time since Parisians began electing the city's leader 24 years ago, the Socialists appear poised for victory. That would give the left control of the third-most prominent job in the country, after president and prime minister.
It doesn't reflect an ideological shift among voters so much as an implosion by the right. The incumbent mayor, Jean Tiberi, is enmeshed in a web of scandals and has been dumped by his own Rally for the Republic party, which is fielding an alternative. Tiberi is gamely running as an independent, thereby splitting the conservative vote.
Leading the Socialists is the soft-spoken -- some say bland -- Bertrand Delanoe, the first openly gay French politician to run for office at this level. His sexual orientation has caused barely a notice here, another sign of changing times in Parisian politics. He has consolidated his lead in opinion polls in the days before the first round of voting Sunday in the city's complicated system of indirect election.
A Socialist victory in Paris, coupled with possible wins for the left in two other longtime conservative bastions -- Toulouse and Lyon, France's second-largest city -- would be a severe embarrassment for the rightist president, Jacques Chirac, who must face the voters for a second term next year.
His troubles, and those of many other politicians in France these days, come from a new daring being shown by French prosecutors, who in a series of highly publicized cases are pursuing corrupt practices long left undisturbed. Losses by Chirac's conservative allies in key local races could presage a general shift against the right that could affect the 2002 presidential election, analysts say.
In Paris, the mayoral candidates' policy positions are remarkably close, reflecting the fact that this is a well-run city with few of the intransigent problems of urban America. The main difference between the candidates is that Delanoe is promising a new "transparent" politics that will clean up the mess in city hall. A victory would give the Socialists access to the archives and past contracts that could make life difficult for Chirac, a former mayor.
"In the case of Paris, if the left wins, guided by a gay man without any charisma, it shows the extent of the rejection" of the conservatives, said political commentator Dominique Moisi. "The right says they are going to lose because they are divided; I say they are going to lose because of their corruption."
Tiberi might have been considered a sure bet for reelection because "Paris has never been, since the Paris Commune of 1871, a left-wing city," said Francois Heisbourg, a French political analyst who is president of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. "It has always been a Bonapartist, right-wing city. For Napoleon I, Napoleon III, Paris was their breeding ground politically."
"The notion that the left could win Paris, even two years ago, would have been ludicrous," he said. "The scale of this Paris earthquake -- and, more importantly, the nature of its aftershocks -- are still undetermined. But it will cause one hell of an impact for Chirac."
Chirac was mayor from 1977 until he moved to the presidential palace in 1995; Tiberi was his handpicked successor, a fellow member of the Rally for the Republic.
The job is considered a springboard to higher office because of its national prominence -- it comes with an ornate palace, the Hotel de Ville on the River Seine, a $4.5 billion budget, about 40,000 employees and a huge fund-raising machine.
It is the purported abuse of that fund-raising apparatus that forms the core of the corruption scandals and that now threatens to unlock the conservative party's grip on city hall. One scandal under investigation involves allegations of public housing contracts being awarded to political friends in exchange for party contributions.
There are also allegations of phony voter lists and phantom jobs at city hall. Even the mayor's wife, Xaviere, was caught in scandal after being found guilty of accepting $36,000 from the government to prepare a report on a subject on which she had no expertise. (The conviction was later thrown out.) The weekly satirical newspaper, Le Canard Enchaine, lampoons her in a regular front-page column called "The Diary of Xaviere T."
Tiberi has protested his innocence and suggested that he only inherited a system in place. That defense points the finger at his predecessor, Chirac. On a popular television show that uses puppets to mimic French politicians, a Tiberi puppet is always shown lurking in the background carrying a huge file of supposedly incriminating documents.
The mayor has persisted in seeking another term, to the dismay of his old party colleagues. Under a typically chilly winter drizzle, he showed up recently in the city's main Vietnamese neighborhood to press the flesh. He was met by a small knot of journalists, a few aides and some local council candidates -- but precious few voters.
At the Indochinese Residents Association, he made small talk with the director amid hanging red lanterns and Chinese-character scrolls on the walls. "Any specific questions?" the mayor asked. "No," the director replied, smiling, a bit perplexed.
Tiberi's also-ran status seemed confirmed last week when he was not invited to participate in what became a two-way debate between the men seen as the main contenders. "It's unacceptable that the mayor of Paris doesn't have a place," he fumed the day before the debate.
Most attention has focused on Delanoe, a 50-year-old senator. According to the latest opinion poll in the daily newspaper Le Parisien, Delanoe's Socialist Party "list," or slate, now leads the pack with 38 percent.
On the same day Tiberi was attracting little notice with Vietnamese Parisians, Delanoe campaigned on a Bastille neighborhood street once known for furniture-making and carpentry but now a hive of chic cafes and salsa bars. The area symbolizes the kind of new Paris -- younger, more liberal -- that has helped make a Socialist victory possible.
The media contingent was huge, taking up most of the sidewalk around him. From upstairs windows, women waved and shouted.
"There's been an evolution in this neighborhood, from its creativity and its commercial activity," Delanoe said, puffing on one of the trademark cigarillos he chain-smokes. "History and creativity go very well together."
When he first began campaigning, he was so little known that his opponents, and even some supporters, mistakenly called him "Bernard" instead of "Bertrand." On the television satire show, the Delanoe puppet speaks in such a low voice that the announcer can neither hear nor understand him.
Reminding voters of the myriad scandals has been part of Delanoe's strategy. In the televised debate, Delanoe repeatedly tried to link his opponent Philippe Seguin, the Rally for the Republic candidate, with Tiberi. "Transparency is without a doubt the priority for Parisians," Delanoe said. "For the last 24 years, there has been a system, from fictitious jobs to false voters."
Seguin and his supporters, meanwhile, have been trying to link Delanoe unfavorably to the Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin. "With Delanoe, there will be a red telephone direct to Jospin!" warned a pro-Seguin candidate, Jacques Toubon, in a speech at a Seguin rally.
After Seguin entered the gymnasium gathering, under a spotlight and to the blare of rock music, Toubon summed up the mood: "We are near the end of a strange campaign."