LE PEN SMASHED AND LOST 1-MILLION VOTES, CHIRAC OVERWHELMINGLY ELECTED, LUTTE OUVRIERE'S CALL FOR A BLANK VOTE (OR SPOILED) VINDICATED. by Frontlines Correspondents
More voters went to the polls than in the first round. The first round had a 30% abstention rate, the second less than 20% Lutte Ouvriere's call for a blank or spoil ballot vindicated: 1.3 – Million and counting.
Arlette Laguiller's (LO presidential candidate in the first round) comment: "The left became a political prostitute for free in the second round." She added that the mass movement on the streets already isolated Le Pen and the extreme right and therefore a support for a right wing conservative as Chirac was not needed, but rather independence from the bourgeoisie in the fight against neo-fascism was required.
LO and Laguiller were the only ones from those parties and candidates of the left in the first round that did not support Chirac. In spite a savage campaign on the media and by the rest of the left against them, LO's call for a blank vote was followed by 1.3-Million voters. Neo-fascist Le Pen (Front Nationale), encircled by the mass movement of workers and youth was isolated and his vote collapsed from 4.8- Million in the first round (when there were 16 candidates) to 3.9- Million in the second round with only two candidates and more than 2.5-Million additional voters. The mobilization against neo-fascism included a 1.5 million mobilized on May Day throughout France. So much was the embattled neo-fascists isolated by the struggle of the mass movement that Le Pen's closing campaign rally in Marseille (one of his strongholds) only attracted 5,000 people (one third of what he expected).
Chirac would use the support for him from the mainstream left (Socialist and Communist Party) and of the Marxist left Ligue Communiste Revolutionarie to put forward the motion for a right wing, conservative "popular Front" or "Republican Front" for the upcoming legislative elections in June. Chirac belongs to the right wing Gaullist sector of the French ruling class. In the past, he mirrored and coopted many of the planks of the neo-fascist FN.
PROJECTED RESULTS OF FRANCE'S SECOND ROUND (With 70% of the votes already counted)
Registered voters: 27 372 485 Abstentions: 5 107 335 (18,66 %) Voters: 22 265 150 (81,34 %) Blank and Spoiled ballots: 1 311 817 (4,79 %) - estimate Jacques Chirac: 17 064 915 (76,6%) - estimate Jean-Marie Le Pen: 3 888 418 (17.4%) – estimate
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