THE FRENCH left sought to avoid an open split yesterday after the Communist Party leader, Mr Robert Hue, warned he will not surrender his party's policies - including fierce opposition to the EU - in favour of those of the Socialists in upcoming ballots.
As the Socialist Party leader Mr Lionel Jospin, tried to rally the left barely two weeks before the first round of voting, Mr Hue warned that an electoral pact between the two parties would not mean the abandonment of policies for electoral convenience.
"We will have to talk ... taking into account the votes cast certainly, but without seeking to align one view with whatever other view," he said in a TV interview.
"I would like to say solemnly that this is the condition for building a left-wing majority," he said.
The Socialists are leading a left-wing bloc of Communists and Greens in an attempt to oust the centre-right majority of the Prime Minister, Mr Alain Juppe, in elections scheduled for May 25th and June 1st.
Latest opinion polls indicate that the bloc is closing the gap: one poll on Thursday gave the ruling Rally for the Republic (RPR) and Union for French Democracy (UDF) only a four-seat lead over the left in the 577-seat National Assembly, in which it held 80 per cent of the seats before the dissolution.
The Socialists and Communists agreed an electoral pact shortly after President Jacques Chirac announced the snap polls on April 21st, although they are not formally linked and are not presenting joint candidates.
The parties disagree notably over Europe, but have sought to bury their differences in an attempt to secure power. The Socialists have pledged that, if elected, they would impose new conditions on French participation in the first wave of a single European currency, taking account of France's record 12.8 per cent jobless rate.
The Communists flatly oppose any question of joining the euro.
Mr Hue's latest comments came as Mr Jospin published an open letter in the French regional press, in response to a similar one by Mr Chirac on Wednesday. In it he admitted the left made mistakes in the past, but rounded on Mr Chirac's own record in power.
Specifically, he condemned Mr Chirac for having betrayed a pledge to cut unemployment and reiterated that the Socialists would not sacrifice jobs for a single EU currency.
"We want Europe without undoing France. We do not want to dissolve Europe in globalisation. We will not resign ourselves to seeing the European ideal collapse in people's minds because they associate it with unemployment and insecurity," Mr Jospin said.
"That is why we want to redirect European policy towards growth and jobs," he added.
Mr Jospin admitted that his socialist predecessors may have made mistakes during the 14-year rule of President Francois Mitterrand who died in January last year, eight months alter leaving office.
But said Mr Jospin: "We have learned the lessons of 10 years when we governed this country. The mistakes of the past will not be made again."