FRANCE: The number of seats won by Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front (FN) in legislative elections on June 9th and 16th is one of the principal stakes in the poll. "What I would like," Mr Le Pen said on French radio, "would be for National Front deputies to be the arbiters".
The political scientist Mr Alain Duhamel says that "contrary to legend, the extreme right has advanced in legislative elections, parallel to its performance in presidential polls". In 1988, the FN won 10 per cent of the vote; 13 per cent in 1993; 15 per cent in 1997. Yet because the French system is not based on proportional representation, the FN had no deputies in the outgoing Assembly.
The dull legislative campaign, in which centre-right politicians have refused to debate with their left-wing opponents, favours the FN. So do the huge number of candidates - an average of 15 in each of 577 constituencies. "The Le Pen thorn will sting as painfully in June as it did in April," Mr Duhamel predicted.
In the 1980s, the late President Francois Mitterrand changed the electoral system to favour the FN and cripple Mr Jacques Chirac's centre right. From 1986 until 1988, the FN had 35 deputies in the National Assembly, until the system was changed back.
Ironically, the socialist leader's scheming eventually destroyed his own political heir, the former Prime Minister Mr Lionel Jospin.
In last month's presidential poll, the FN performed best in an arc from former mining regions in northern France, through Alsace and Lorraine in the east and through the south, where immigration is highest. Mr Le Pen is not a candidate, but his daughter Marine, who is also his legal advisor, is standing in Lens, northeastern France. Another FN candidate who could win is Mr Jacques Bompard, the mayor of the southern city of Orange. Mr Bompard was re-elected in the first round of last year's municipal election with 60 per cent of the vote. He has banned journalists from the Libération newspaper and the Canal Plus television station from his city.
The leader of President Chirac's UMP, Mr Serge Lepeltier, caused a scandal when he refused to automatically withdraw centre-right candidates who trail after left-wing politicians in the first round. Competition between the centre-right and the left in these triangulaires favours the FN.
Mr Lepeltier has since said that fighting the extreme right is his absolute priority, but bitterness lingers among left-wing voters, without whom Mr Chirac would not have been re-elected. The former socialist minister and senator Mr Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants the FN to be outlawed.