ELECTION IN FRANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 128, 1 June 1936, Page 18

ELECTION IN FRANCE

SIDELIGHTS ON CAM-

PAIGN

USE OF POLICE FILES

* The French Chamber or Lower 1 House is composed of 618 deputies (writes Alan Broderick in the "Daily e Telegraph"). Over 4800 candidates 2 stood at this year's elections. Perhaps '* this is one of the effects of unem- " ployment for a deputy's job is worth ' 60,000 francs, a year—and there are all 6orts of "pickings." .For administrative purposes France " ts divided into ninety-two departments 1 (including those of Alsace and Lorraine ? and those of Algeria, which land counts cs part of metropolitan France, althpugh most of the natives have not been enfrancised). There is also the I ''territory" of Belfort, which up to this 1 election has for some years returned M. Tardieu to Parliament. s East department is divided into so t many arrondissements. The adminisr trative organisations, such as the f General Councils of the departments, f play no direct part in the elections for j. the Chamber, although they are all t important in the Senatorial elections. The limits of the constituencies coin- ' cide with the limits of the administra- . tive divisions in the sense that so many r constituencies fit into a department . and that a constituency consists of so many arrondissements — sometimes s only one. - NO VOTES FOR WOMEN. I In the large towns, such as Paris, an arrondissement may return more " than one deputy. The average consti- " tuency contains about 20,000 voters. It I must be remembered that there is man- ' hood suffrage but that the women do i not vote and have no political rights at all. , There has been no general Redistn- " bution Bill since the foundation of the " Third Republic. The whole face of 1 France has changed in the last sixty ! years. There has been a great shift " of population from the country to the r towns. France has become industrial- ? ised. Peasants no longer form the majority of the inhabitants, but barely 45 per cent. . France needs a Reform Bill. There are departments where the population has sunk to 40 per dent, of what it was in the seventies, but they _ still return the same number of deputies. At the head of each department the Government is represented by a prefect, who is directly under the Minister of the Interior. Right up to the turn of the century the prefects were expected to exercise a very considerable influence on the affairs of their departments. Today they are really agents of information. Their prefectures are salons where all sorts and conditions of men meet, and the suggestions and orders of the Minister of the Interior are conveyed over the dinner table. The majority of prefects are "professionals" in the sense that they have entered the career at the bottom and hope to end at the top with a nice, fat job on the board of some company ds a reward when they retire. THE OTHERS. But there are other prefects, who have served their apprenticeship in political life and are attached to the person of some one political figure. Such a prefect is the faithful protege ' of the Minister who has made him. ! If he is clever and lucky he ends up 1 governor of some important colony. French constituencies can be divided • Into two classes. Those where the electors vote for a man and those where they vote for a party. The latter are the more numerous, and in such a constituency if a man is put up by 1 one of the recognised parties he knows approximately how many votes he will poll at the first ballot. The Government in power at the moment of the elections expects to exercise a very considerable influence on their results. The prefects are the principal agents through which this influence is made to be felt. First of all there is the money from the secret funds. This is used in all sorts of ways; to finance candidates, to help good party men who have got into difficulties, to put up split-vote candidates, and to ensure the withdrawal of undesirable men. To achieve these same ends there is the money collected from local notables in exchange for promises of Government support for their schemes and interests. Then pressure can be exerted by utilising the secret reports of the Surete Rationale (secret police). Such reports on the private life of members end candidates are forwarded to the prefects so that they may use them either in the Press or hand them over to the opponents of undesirable candidates. It is easy to see how, in these circumstances, the most outrageous allegations which are the back-chat of French electoral campaigns do not often lead to any serious consequences. THE ELECTORS. Of course, the electors have also to be. thought of at election time. A short time ago a credit of 37,750,000 francs was opened "for the repair of damages other than those referred to in the Bill for the repair of damages in the south-east of France." Such money Aelps to sustain local enthusiasm, but after all the ballot is secret and many electors take the proffered hand and vote according to their consciences. The first thing a Parliamentary candidate has to do is to get what is called his "investiture" from the central committee of his party in Paris. Even when the local committee has sent his name up he is by no means sure of being approved. Lots of intriguing and lobbying goes on in the central committee rooms. When he has got his "investiture" he descends on his constituency and sticks up his posters with his name in large letters and as much of his personal history as he thinks should be made public. When our candidate has managed to get elected either at the first or the second ballot his troubles are not at an end, for before he can take his seat in the Chamber he has to be "validated"—i.e., the Chamber has to vote that no irregularities took place during the election. This is a splendid opportunity for his enemies to have a final fling. The validation votes are not always determined by consideration of the facts alone.