Second Round

Jacques René Chirac (born November 29, 1932) is a French politician. ... The Rally for the Republic, also known by its French acronym RPR (Rassemblement pour la République), was a French political party. ... Portrait of Jean-Marie Le Pen. ... This article is about the French political party, not the WWII French resistance movement Front National. ... Jacques René Chirac (born November 29, 1932) is a French politician. ... Portrait of Jean-Marie Le Pen. ...

First Round

Jacques René Chirac (born November 29, 1932) is a French politician. ... The Rally for the Republic, also known by its French acronym RPR (Rassemblement pour la République), was a French political party. ... Portrait of Jean-Marie Le Pen. ... This article is about the French political party, not the WWII French resistance movement Front National. ... Lionel Jospin (born 12 July 1937) is a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997-2002. ... The emblem of the French Socialist Party The Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste or PS), founded in 1969, is the main opposition party in France. ... The Union for French Democracy, also known by its French acronym UDF (Union pour la Démocratie Française), is a French center-right political party. ... Arlette Laguiller (born March 18, 1940) is the spokeswoman and by far the best known leader of the Lutte Ouvrière French Trotskyist political party. ... Workers Struggle (Lutte Ouvrière) is the usual name under which the Communist Union (Trotskyist) (Union Communiste (Trotskyste)), a French Trotskyist political party, is known (technically, it is the name of the weekly paper edited by the party). ... Jean-Pierre Chevènement Jean-Pierre Chevènement (born March 9, 1939 in Belfort) is a French politician. ... Noël Mamère (born December 25, 1948) is a French politician of the French Green Party (Les Verts). ... Les verts (the Greens) is one Green Party of France. ... Oliver Besancenot is a member of the French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, the affiliate in France of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, a world wide Trotskyist tendency. ... Alain Madelin (born March 26, 1946) is a French politician and a former minister of that country. ... Robert Hue (born October 19, 1946) is a French politician. ... The logo of the PCF. Note the absence of traditional communist imagery such as the hammer and sickle. ... Bruno Mégret (born April 4, 1949) is a French politician. ... The National Republican Movement (Mouvement National Républicain or MNR) is a French right-wing political party, created by Bruno Mégret as a split from Jean-Marie Le Pens National Front. ... Christine Boutin (born February 6, French politician. ... The Union for French Democracy, also known by its French acronym UDF (Union pour la Démocratie Française), is a French center-right political party. ... Daniel Gluckstein (born March 3, 1953) is a French far_left Trotskyist politician from the Parti des Travailleurs (PT). ... The Party of the Workers (Parti des Travailleurs or PT), is a French political party which was formed by the Trotskyist Internationalist Communist Party (PCI) led by Pierre Boussel better known by his pseudonym Pierre Lambert (it was customary for senior leaders of the party to be known under pseudonyms...

General Summary

This election came as a shock to many commentators, almost all of whom had expected the second ballot to be between Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin. Jospin's poor showing and the widespread splintering of the left-wing vote in the first round of the election meant that instead Jean-Marie Le Pen faced Chirac in the second ballot. The election brought the two-round voting system into question as well as raising many concerns about apathy and the way in which the left had become so divided. Jacques René Chirac (born November 29, 1932) is a French politician. ... Lionel Jospin (born 12 July 1937) is a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997-2002. ... Portrait of Jean-Marie Le Pen. ... Runoff voting is a voting system used in single-seat elections. ...

In the months before the election, the campaign had increasingly focused on questions of law and order, with a particular attention towards crime committed by the youth, especially the youth of foreign origin. The Jospin government was criticized for its "softness" on crime.

There was a widespread stirring of national public opinion, and more than one million people in France took part in street rallies, in an expression of fierce opposition to Le Pen's ideas. Some held up protest signs stating "I'm ashamed to be French".

The choice between Chirac, who was at the time under investigation for actions carried out whilst he was mayor of Paris (see corruption scandals in the Paris region) and who was benefiting from Presidential immunity, and Le Pen, a nationalist often accused of racism and antisemitism, was one that many found tough. In the days before the second ballot, a memorable poster was put up of Chirac with the slogan "Vote for a Crook, not a Fascist". Chirac defeated Le Pen by a landslide. The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... In the 1980s and 1990s there were in the Paris region (Île-de-France) multiple instances of alleged and proved political corruption cases, as well as cases of abuse of public money and resources. ... Nationalism is an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans. ... Racism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ...

See also: President of France, France, Politics of France The President of France, known officially as the President of the Republic (Président de la République in French), is Frances elected Head of State. ... French politics under the Fifth Republic After Charles de Gaulle had the constitution of the French Fifth Republic adopted in 1958, France was ruled by successive right-wing administrations until 1981. ...

External links

Official French government links are in French.

• Official file of the French Constitutional Council
• Official results from the Ministry of the Interior