Word: pens
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, the Socialists will be a considerable opposition force. The two major conservative groups and their allies won 291 seats, a hairline two-vote majority. The ultraright National Front attracted 9.7% of the vote, giving the ) party of former Paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen parliamentary representation for the first time, with 35 seats. The biggest loser: France's Communist Party, which slumped from 20% of the vote in 1979 to 9.8% and appears to be in an irreversible decline...
...real wild card in the French parliamentary election is Jean-Marie Le Pen, 57, a far-rightist. Le Pen has capitalized on France's xenophobia, waging a crusade that resembles in some of its substance and style the U.S. campaigns of Alabama Governor George Wallace during the 1960s. Le Pen and his National Front charge that France's 4.2 million immigrants are responsible for high unemployment and a high crime rate. Hidden just below the surface is veiled racism against immigrants. Le Pen has been charged with taking part in torture sessions while serving as a paratrooper in Algeria...
Under France's former winner-take-all system of voting by districts, Le Pen's National Front would have continued to operate on the political fringes. But last year, when the Socialists' standing in the opinion polls was plunging, the party rammed through a plan for proportional representation. This tends to minimize the gains of the big parties, while maximizing those of the smaller groups. The Socialists' aim was to make it harder for any party to get an absolute majority, but a side effect was to help the far-rightists. The National Front, which has never held a seat...
...conservative alliance has vowed not to bring Le Pen into any rightist coalition. Aware that he is siphoning away votes from their constituency, opposition leaders have in recent weeks begun urging voters not to throw their ballots away by voting for Le Pen. "The proportional system is deliberately aimed at clouding the balance of forces," warns Jacques Toubon, the R.P.R. secretary-general. "That is why it is so essential that the voters give the R.P.R.-U.D.F. enough support for an absolute, unequivocal majority." The Socialists are also telling leftist voters not to waste their ballots by voting for the failing...
...PEN--Professional Education Network...