FRENCH ELECTIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22399, 21 April 1936, Page 8

FRENCH ELECTIONS

The first ballot in the French elections is now less than a week away. When the votes are cast next Sunday, 4807 candidates will offer for 615 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The contest, it is stated, will be a straight fight between the parties of the Bight and the Left. The latter, the Radicals, Socialists and Communists, have officially composed their differences, to fight together as .the Popular Front. The arrangement has been cynically described, however, as a process of give and take, in which the endeavour of each party is to take all that offers and to give as little as possible in return. There are many issues which might be expected to have a bearing on the election—the Italian-Abyssinian struggle, the situation on the Rhine, the new relationship with Soviet Russia in the foreign field, and the financial outlook, bound up with the maintenance of the franc, in the domestic. Actually, according to competent observers, the birth and existence of new movements, deliberately holding aloof from ordinary politics—the Croix de Feu is typical of them—is proving a strong, if not dominant, factor in determining party tactics. The Popular Front sees an excellent chance in this election to strike a blow against Fascism, so far as these organisations can be called Fascist. It is in the hope of being given a definite vote, which they can quote as a national verdict against the rise of Fascism, that the three Left parties have waived their many differences and created the Popular Front. The test will come, not at the first ballot, but at the second, when the strength of the alliance between Radicals, Socialists and Communists against the Bight will be put to the test of sincerity.