GENERAL ELECTIONS IN FRANCE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 7 April 1936, Page 5

GENERAL ELECTIONS IN FRANCE.

CONTEST MOKE OBSCURE THAN FOE MANY YEARS. SINGLE ISSUE CONFRONTS PARTIES. (By Telegraph-Press Assn.-Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.45 a.in.) LONDON, April 0. The “Sun-Herald” says that the general election campaign in France opens to-day. The first ballot occurs on April 2Cth and the second on May 3rd. 2730 candidates have been nominated for Gls seats. (the majority of the candidates disappear after the first ballot, when four main parties remain, namely, Communists, Socialists, Radi-cal-Socialists, Croix de Feu and other Nationalists. The contest will be more obscure than for many years. The internal politic stall is of first importance, but Foreign Affairs recently have so monopolised the public’s attention that preliminaries and party groupings have lost much of their meaning. The Left and Right, which were clearly divided in November on such questions as future parliamentary government, economic and financial policy and social legislation, are now confronted by a single issue, Democracy versus Fascism, which has been transplanted from internal to foreign fields.

Hitler’s violation of the Locarno Treaty lias enabled the Left to steal the Right’s thunder, because the question is not only the defence of France against Germany, but the defence of the democratic system against the autocratic system.