Run-up starts to French poll

Press, 21 February 1978, Page 8

Run-up starts to French poll

i NZPA-Reuter Paris i The French General Election campaign will officially ionen today. But no-one is i likely to know the difference: campaigning has been lin full swing for nearly a year.

The elections, on March and 19. are for the National \ Assembly. Opinion polls indicate that the Opposition Left will beat the conservative forces that have ruler’ France for 20 years.

The combination of a Leftwing Assembly with a Centre-Right President, Mr Valery Giscard d’Estaing, is potentially explosive.

A Left-wing victory for the 490-seat House could 'also cause a big crisis because the Left’s two lareest components, the Socialists and Communists are already

in open battle against one another.

At the very least, such a victory is almost certain to bring a great change, if not upheaval, in France’s ecnomic policies, the distribution of wealth, the way the country is ruled, and its relations with other nations. The ruling majority, itself sharply divided between Mr i Giscard d’Estaing’s supporters and the powerful Gaullist Party, is clearly afraid, and is warning voters that a Left-wing victory would mean chaos followed by totalitarian rule. If the Left manages to stay united after taking power, it will also mean the entry for the first time in 30 years of Communist Ministers into a Western European Government.