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CNN Live Sunday
Most Closely Watched Election Not Even Close; Interview with Michael Elliott
Aired May 05, 2002 - 22:18 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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Today's French presidential election may go down as the most closely watched election that wasn't even close. Mr. Chirac crushed his far right challenger, Jean Marie Le Pen by a 4 to 1 margin.
But as CNN's senior correspondent Jim Bittermann reports, Chirac will hardly have time to savor the win before taking on his next political challenge.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jacques Chirac has been around politics long enough to know that no election is in the bag until the votes are counted. But never in his 35-year political career could he have gone to the ballot box so confident of winning, as he did Sunday.
Yet it's not something that should go to his head, because despite his resounding victory, he was the first choice of less than one voter in five. Chirac was in a unique position to win because he was to many voters, the lessor of two evils. The greater being his opponent from the extreme right.
The French, as Chirac himself pointed out in a final campaign speech, really did not have much choice.
JACQUES CHIRAC, PRESIDENT, FRANCE: (through translator) We must reject extremism and remain with the honor of France. In the name of the unity of our own nation, I call on all French to massively vote for the Republican ideals against the extreme right.
BITTERMANN: Of course, even if one is elected by default, by virtue of a vote against, rather a vote for, becoming president of France is not all that bad. As Chirac, after seven years in office, knows better than anyone else. But if Chirac wants to avoid the acrimony and unproductive politics of most of the last seven years, when as head of state, he had to share power with the prime minister, who was his bitter political rival, the president must now have very long electoral coattails.
He must make sure his supporters sweep to power in the National Assembly, so that the prime minister is his political ally after the legislative elections are held in June. (on camera): Those elections for the national parliament here are now crucial, mainly because French voters, according to analysts, will grow more and more cynical, more and more tempted toward extremist politics if the two main political parties here try once again to govern together.
(voice-over): Chirac's advisers believe another period of power sharing will produce another period of dysfunctional government.
PIERRE LEQUILLER, CHIRAC ADVISER: It would be horrible. I think it would be terrible because he would give instability again the country. The French people would be furious. It would be disorder.
BITTERMANN: So now that he has won himself, the 69-year old Chirac, if he's to be truly victorious, must lead another successful campaign, one over the next five weeks for the national parliament. A substantial burden for someone tainted by financial scandals and viewed by the critics as being tired and predictable.
Still, it may not matter that each passing election indicates Chirac does not inspire the electorate as he once did. The constant campaigner has outlasted his opponents. And in politics, survival can be everything.
Jim BITTERMANN, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLAWAY: And to help us understand what the election in France means to the political future of Europe and to U.S.-European relations, we're joined in our New York bureau by Michael Elliott, editor at large for "Time" magazine. He covered the French elections in this week's issue. Good report there.
Thank you so much for being with us tonight.
MICHAEL ELLIOTT, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Good to be here.
CALLAWAY: How about that election. Was almost as good as American politics, wasn't it?
ELLIOTT: Huge sigh of relief. You could almost hear the whole of France.
CALLAWAY: And the White House.
ELLIOTT: Flailing this -- and the White House, exhaling this sigh of relief. Chirac actually did better than I thought he did. My back of the envelope calculation (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I thought that the Le Pen might get 22, 23 percent, maybe even a little more. On the last figures that I saw just before coming on the air, it sounds like he only got about 18, 19 percent.
CALLAWAY: Yes, I think we got the results now. We'll put them up for you.
ELLIOTT: That's pretty good. That's pretty good.
CALLAWAY: There we go. 96 percent of the vote counted. Chirac with 82 percent.
ELLIOTT: 82.
CALLAWAY: Le Pen with 18 percent. But least we forget what happened earlier...
ELLIOTT: Right.
CALLAWAY: ...in the first round, Jean Marie Le Pen, he's been called a racist. He's been called a bigot. Of course he denies all that. But nonetheless, received an incredible amount of support of in that earlier election stunned a lot of people. What happened?
ELLIOTT: Well, I think a number of things happened. One of the simplest things that happened is the French electoral system played into his hands because you had the left folk kind of split about six different ways in the first term of the elections. But that doesn't really, kind of, get to the root of the matter.
CALLAWAY: Right. Well, we should mention though with socialist Lionel Justin was also there.
ELLIOTT: Exactly, exactly. I mean, but you had the left vote split six different ways.
CALLAWAY: Mm-hmm.
ELLIOTT: But that's not really the main point. I mean, what this whole election over two weeks, I think, has demonstrated is first of all that the French people are completely fed up with leading political figures. Jacques Chirac has just been re-elected as president, who was first prime minister of France in 1974, 28 years ago.
CALLAWAY: He's experienced.
ELLIOTT: So -- and he's sure experienced, but I mean, it would be like us in the United States being asked, you know, what we think of Gerald Ford in an election this year. I think we'd be pretty fed up of the prospect. I think secondly, the elections show that a lot of French people have real questions about where their country is going, and have real questions about their national identity.
CALLAWAY: We don't have a lot of time tonight, but I want to move on with that point in mind that you just made with the national assembly elections coming up in June. And we've seen how well Le Pen did, regardless of the fact that he lost. He still did well. Got to be a lot of concern now. And Le Pen had to get a little bit out of this and feel somewhat positive about what could happen in June.
ELLIOTT: He tends, actually, not to do well in the national assembly elections, with the exception of one kind of brief moment in the late 1980s, when the voting system was different from what it is now. Le Pen tends not to do well in national assembly elections. And I actually don't think, to be honest, that he will pick up more than a handful of seats in the national assembly in a few week's time. And then he can come back and kind of hit me on the head with that prediction.
CALLAWAY: Yes, we're going to hold you to that.
ELLIOTT: If I'm wrong. I mean, there real question is whether Chirac is going to have prime minister from his own political (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to right, which I hope he will have, because if he is forced to have what the French call prohabitation, where the prime minister from the socialist party again, then as Jim Bittermann's report just said, the general sense of malaise and we're fed up with a lot of them that is so prevalent in France now, is just going to deepen and deepen.
CALLAWAY: Right, and as you said, Michael, it's not over yet. It's going to be interesting to see what happens in June. We will hold you to your predictions.
ELLIOTT: OK.
CALLAWAY: Michael Elliott with "Time" magazine. Thank you so much for being with us. And we'll have you back in June, too, Michael.
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