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CNN Live Sunday

Landslide for Chirac

Aired May 05, 2002 - 17:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN ANCHOR: It's a landslide in France and the far right candidate is buried in it. Incumbent President Jacques Chirac easily won reelection today, trouncing his extreme right wing opponent Jean-Marie Le Pen. CNN's Robin Oakley is live at Republic Square in Paris where Chirac and his supporters are at a very noisy celebration.

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jonathan, Jacques Chirac has been reelected French President by a large majority tonight, ending the worries of the French political establishment that Monsieur Le Pen could have altered the future course of French politics by getting as much as 25 or 30 percent of the vote.

It now seems that Monsieur Le Pen's success in the first round of the presidential election was expressive rather than a trend in French politics, although he does seem to have a hardcore support now of around a fifth of the French population.

And Mr. Chirac, although he's had a stunning success in one sense tonight, has to rebuild now his authority as president, because many have criticized him for achieving very little during the last five years. He's got to show a new dynamism.

He's also got to escape from those allegations of corruption, which Monsieur Le Pen leveled against him, and Mr. Chirac knows that many on the left only voted for him because they had no candidate at the left and they were prepared to stick with the slogan "better vote for the crook rather than the fascist" which is not much of a recommendation.

And Mr. Chirac has in two speeches tonight promised to reunite the French nation to make it a more inclusive style of politics and to start listening to the people, and that is the lesson of this campaign.

Monsieur Le Pen is saying that he was victimized and that the establishment conspired against him with the media, that it wasn't a fair fight. But Monsieur Le Pen is still expecting to make a showing in the parliamentary elections that follow, and Chirac has to build a new course of the center right in those parliamentary elections. Jonathan.

KARL: All right, Robin Oakley covering a very interesting election and listening to some reggae music France style or Paris style.

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