Status quo after French elections

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32562, 23 March 1971, Page 13

Status quo after French elections

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, March 22. Mr Pompidou’s Administration and its Left-wing Opposition are in status quo today after the nation-wide municipal elections, in which a Government drive to increase Gaullist power in focal politics did not succeed.

Spokesmen for all the parties involved in yesterday’s decisive second-round voting—the first national poll for two years—have expressed satisfaction with the results, but agree that no marked trend for or against the Government has emerged.

cil seats—a gain of three seats from the Left. In Lille, the Minister of Industry (Mr FrancoisXavier Ortoli) failed to unseat the Socialist Mayor (Mr Augustin Laurent), who received Communist support. The Minister of Veterans (Mr Henri Duvillard) lost his seat in Orleans, which was won by a Left-wing coalition. The Secretary of State for Labour (Mr Phillipe Dechartre) finished far behind a radical-Socialist in the western port of La Rochelle; and the Secretary of State for Youth and Sport (Mr Joseph Comiti) was unsuccessful in his bid to displace the well-known Socialist, Mr Gaston Defferre, in Marseilles.

In Paris, Government supporters won a substantial victory, gaining three more seats on the municipal council and assuring themselves of an over-all majority. Centrists, too, gained in Paris, taking one district from the Gaullists. The unified Left-wing was the heaviest loser in the capital. Elsewhere, however, Government supporters lost control of seven cities to the Left, and one, Metz, to the Centrists.

Gaullists gained control in seven cities, and in one sector of Paris. Run-off ballots were held in all 14 sectors of the capital, and gave Government supporters 46 of the 90 coun-