Word: runoff
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...death of Georges Pompidou last month, a full dozen candidates entered the race to succeed him as President. This week French voters went to the polls for a first-round election that cut the field down to two, and set the stage for one of the most bitter runoff campaigns in French political history. The contenders: Socialist Leader François Mitterrand, 57, who is running with increasing power, backed by both his own party and the Communists, and Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 48, the first Establishment candidate to win a shot at the Elys...
...opponents on the right. The early projections indicated that he pulled about 44% of the vote -short of the absolute majority needed to win the presidency in the first round. Thus the main issue was who would come in second and thereby become Mitterrand's opponent in the runoff on May 19. Giscard, who had been drawing away in the polls from his archrival, former Premier Jacques Chaban-Delmas, won the competition for second place with about 33% of the vote; Chaban, the "official" Gaullist candidate, came in with roughly...
...Socialist and Communist parties, Francois Mitterrand, 57 (TIME, April 29), still holds a commanding lead. Polls late last week gave him 42% of the vote, Giscard 28% and Chaban 24%. But unless Mitterrand wins an absolute majority, which is not likely, he will be forced into a runoff on May 19 against the candidate with the second highest vote...
Although Chaban and Giscard at first agreed not to attack each other, Chaban last week warned his fellow Gaullists that Giscard will not be able to beat Mitterrand in the runoff. Chaban exhorted: "I say that I can defeat Mitterrand. You cannot joke on the May 5 ballot. Vote wisely! Vote Chaban-Delmas, who can keep us from the peril of Mitterrand...
...Giscard maintains his momentum and outruns Chaban, the Gaullist Party will suffer a serious and perhaps fatal setback. "Then we will bury General de Gaulle for a second time," says Gaullist Minister of the Interior Jacques Chirac. In the runoff, as the sole candidate of the center and right, Giscard would be favored to top Mitterrand. The current campaign, however, has had several surprises. Thus, no one rules out the long-odds possibility that Mitterrand may just get a majority on May 5, winning the presidency and making the Giscard-Chaban duel on the right an empty exercise...