Jewish voters gave strong support to incumbent Socialist Francois Mitterrand in the first round of the presidential elections Sunday and are expected to support him overwhelmingly against his center-right rival, Premier Jacques Chirac, in the run-off elections on May 8.
This was indicated by exit polls conducted Sunday among 4,078 voters. The results, published Tuesday in the Catholic weekly La Vie, show that 44.5 percent of Jews voted for Mitterrand, 32.8 percent for Chirac and 11.6 percent for center-right candidate Raymond Barre, a former prime minister.
The rest of the Jewish vote was not accounted for.
Questioned about how they plan to vote in the run-off elections, 63.3 percent of Jewish respondents said they would support Mitterrand and 36.7 percent backed Chirac.
Barre was eliminated in the first round of voting Sunday, as was Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far right-wing National Front.
But Le Pen’s strong showing has disturbed French Jews who consider him racist though he denies being anti-Semitic. Le Pen netted 14.38 percent of Sunday’s vote, according to the official final count.
CRIF, the Representative Council of Major French Jewish Organizations, issued a warning Monday, to the two winners of Sunday’s round of voting, not to “pander” to the far right.
The warning was directed mainly to Chirac, whom political analysts say must win a sizeable share of the 4.5 million Le Pen voters if he is to overcome Mitterrand’s lead.
POLLS FAVORING MITTERRAND
Mitterrand is not likely to receive or need the support of rightists to win another term as president. The polls favor the Socialist leader over Chirac by a margin of 54 to 46 percent.
Chirac, in a television address Monday night, made an open bid for right-wing support. He stressed the need to curb immigration and enforce security measures, themes sounded by Le Pen.
Simone Veil, herself a center-rightist and a former president of the Parliament of Europe, reportedly warned Chirac to make no concessions to the Le Pen crowd.
Veil, an Auschwitz survivor who carries political clout among centrists and liberals, was outraged by Le Pen’s dismissal of the Holocaust as a “minor point” of history, a statement he made in a Radio Luxembourg interview last September.
She urged center-right candidates not even to meet with Le Pen. So far, both Chirac and Barre have followed her advice.
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