FRANCE: FRENCH VOTERS HEAD TO POLLS FOR NATIONWIDE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

Record ID: 328699

  • Title: FRANCE: FRENCH VOTERS HEAD TO POLLS FOR NATIONWIDE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
  • Date: 11th March 2001
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (MARCH 11, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. PAN OVER PARIS EARLY IN MORNING 0.10 2. WS: PLACE DE LA CONCORDE WITH EIFFEL TOWER IN BACKGROUND 0.13 3. SV: WOMAN SELECTING LIST IN BOOTH 0.16 4. VARIOUS VOTERS AT THE BALLOT BOX (3 SHOTS) 0.28 5. SLV: ROOM WITH MEMBERS OF MEDIA WAITING FOR SOCIALIST MAYORAL CANDIDATE FOR PARIS, BERTAND DELANOË 0.34 6. SV: WOMEN VOTING 0.37 7. SV: BERTRAND DELANOE CHATS TO PHOTOGRAPHERS BEFORE PLACING HIS BALLOT IN BALLOT BOX 1.46 8. SV: DELANOE SHAKES HANDS WITH POLLING STATION WORKERS 1.57 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 26th March 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVA8PGDC8YQSO827GBOPWC4WZHW1
  • Story Text: French voters have been heading to the polls for
    nationwide municipal elections which are expected to swing
    power in the capital to the Socialists for the first time in
    more than a century.


    French voters headed to the polls at 0700 gmt on
    Sunday (March 11), kicking off nationwide municipal elections
    which are expected to swing power in the capital to the
    Socialists for the first time in more than a century.

    The vote has taken on added significance because it comes
    only one year before presidential and general elections, when
    Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin will challenge
    struggling conservative presidential incumbent Jacques Chirac
    for supremacy.

    Held over two rounds, on March 11 and 18, the local ballot
    will elect 36,615 mayors.

    It is the Paris contest which has dominated the headlines.

    Chirac, was the capital's mayor from 1977 until becoming
    president in 1995, and Paris was the fiefdom of the right wing
    for the last hundred years. It now looks set to fall to
    Socialist candidate Bertrand Delanoe.

    Jospin's allies, buoyed by a healthy national picture of
    strong economic growth and falling unemployment, are also
    hoping to snatch control from the splintered right in a number
    of other key cities like Lyon and Toulouse.

    Left winger Bertrand Delanoë - man of the people and
    openly gay- should benefit from a split within the right wing
    RPR (Rally for the Republic) party and win Paris from the
    present mayor, Jean Tiberi, who has been dogged by accusations
    of corruption and dropped by his party, the RPR .

    Twenty-seven of Jospin's 33 ministers and secretaries of
    state are standing for mayor or councillor.

    Another big issue is the presence of an equal number of
    female and male candidates on the lists.


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