'Snooze tactics' and leftist splits bode well for Chirac

The centre-right of President Jacques Chirac is heading for a comfortable, and maybe a landslide victory in the French parliamentary elections over the next two weekends, the latest opinion polls show.

Left-wing parties complained yesterday that the centre-right was winning with a combination of "snooze tactics" (deliberately sending the campaign to sleep) and the theft of the populist rhetoric of the far right. But in a year of electoral shocks, no one is yet ready to declare the election lost. The record of French opinion polls is so wayward, and the arithmetic of the election so complex, that some kind of surprise in the first round of voting this Sunday cannot be ruled out.

The far-right National Front may again defy the pollsters and score more heavily than the modest 13 to 14 per cent of the national vote they are forecast to win. Anything less than the 17 per cent scored by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the presidential election in April will be claimed as a victory by the mainstream parties.

Many voters on the left swear that they are determined to avoid their mistakes in the presidential election and turn out in numbers to vote for moderate rather than marginal parties. The new Socialist leader, François Hollande, attempted to shore up the collapsing blue-collar base of the left yesterday by promising a 5 per cent rise in the minimum wage and welfare payments.

But with more than 20 candidates in some constituencies, a record 8,456 candidates nationwide and socialist infighting, a collapse of the moderate left-wing vote this Sunday is possible. That could mean a second-round contest between the centre-right and far right in dozens of constituencies, as in the second round of the presidential election. However, a strong performance by the moderate left (Socialists, Communists and Greens) and the far right could create a fraught and unpredictable second-round on Sunday week.

In the parliamentary election, unlike the presidential poll, three or even four candidates can fight the second round. The top two in each of the 577 constituencies go through automatically. Any other candidate with more than 12.5 cent of the local registered vote (which usually requires 16 to 18 per cent of the actual vote) can run again.

Though the National Front is unlikely to win more than three or four seats (and maybe none), its strength in northern, eastern and southern France is likely to see it fight the second round in 300 or more constituencies, which is more than before. In seats where the left also remains in contention, this will create three-way contests that will split the right-wing vote and could damage the hopes of Mr Chirac's centre-right.

The most recent polls show Mr Chirac's UMP party (Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle) and other centre-right candidates should win 40 per cent of the vote and the Socialists and allies about 30 per cent. This should be enough to prolong the short career of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the centrist chosen by Mr Chirac as an interim Prime Minister last month.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the former 1968 student rebel turned Green leader, warned yesterday that the left was "acting crazily" with up to seven rival left-wing candidates in some constituencies. The fragmented left-wing vote in the presidential election eliminated a Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, and let in Mr Le Pen.

* France's influential daily Le Monde alleged yesterday that the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen had tortured militants in Algeria in its war of independence against France. Similar accusations have surfaced several times in the past, but Mr Le Pen accused Le Monde of manipulating public opinion ahead of the election.