No Debate In French Elections
French president Jacques Chirac on Tuesday said he would refuse to hold a televised debate against extreme-right election rival Jean-Marie Le Pen out of principle.
"Faced with intolerance and hatred," Chirac told a campaign rally in the western city of Rennes. "No debate is possible."
Le Pen, who stunned most of France by beating Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of second place in Sunday's first round vote, had declared he was ready to face Chirac "any time, any place" in a televised debate before the May 5 runoff.
While Jospin largely passed over allegations that Chirac was embroiled in the corruption that for decades afflicted much of French politics, Le Pen — who detests Chirac with a passion — returned to them frequently in his campaign — leading many to expect more of the same at any debate.
"I have seen Le Pen in debates, I have seen the way he employs slander and insult more than ideas. That is the issue we must consider," said Michele Alliot-Marie of Chirac's conservative Rally for the Republic party.
Chirac is expected to win the runoff hands down as even left-wingers rally to his side to defeat Le Pen.
In the latest sounding, opinion pollster Louis Harris forecast that 75 percent of the vote would go to Chirac. Le Pen was given 13 percent — against nearly 17 percent in the first round — with 12 percent undecided or giving other responses.
Riding a wave of discontent over crime, immigration and establishment politics, Le Pen, 73, pushed Jospin into third place among a record 16 candidates in a result which left most of France reeling and sent shockwaves through Europe.
Definitive Interior Ministry figures with all eligible votes counted showed Le Pen won a total of 4,805,307 votes compared to 4,610,749 for Jospin — a difference of only 194,658 votes.
In percentage terms, Le Pen took 16.86 percent of the vote on Sunday compared to Jospin's 16.18 and behind Chirac's tally of 5,666,440 votes, or 19.88 percent.
Sunday's score provoked horror among France's neighbors and protests against Le Pen by thousands in Paris and across France.
Chirac's own unimpressive score — the worst showing by any frontrunner in the 44-year history of France's Fifth Republic — was also seen as a message to the 69-year-old over his lack of credibility with large chunks of the electorate.
Only last year France's highest court intervened to shield Chirac, as a sitting head of state, from questioning as judges sought to ask him about a complex tangle of probes into alleged graft at City Hall during his 1977-1995 reign as Paris mayor.
A separate affair also emerged in the election run-up with a court probe into suspect cash payments made by Chirac for luxury trips he took abroad in the 1990s. The president has denied wrongdoing and sees a plot by rivals to undermine him.
While Chirac — as long as he remains in power — is safe from any questioning on such matters, Le Pen has seized on sleaze as the incumbent's Achilles Heel.
"If he were a company chairman, he would leave his company's annual general meeting in handcuffs," Le Pen said on Monday.
Poking fun at Chirac, he said the Gaullist "believes he's a god of Olympia and doesn't want to debate with a mere mortal."
Chirac is seeking to rally smaller right-wing parties behind the RPR, including the Union for French Democracy and Liberal Democracy, two free-market movements whose candidates jointly polled more than 10 percent.
Swallowing their pride, the Socialist, Communist and Greens parties urged their supporters on Monday to vote for Chirac as the best way to block Le Pen from power.