- Title: FRANCE: VOTING BEGINS IN FRENCH REGIONAL ELECTIONS
- Date: 21st March 2004
- Summary: (U3) PARIS, FRANCE (MARCH 21, 2004) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WIDE VIEW OF WOMAN REGISTERING TO VOTE 0.11 2. CLOSEUP OF ELECTORAL CARD 0.13 3. WIDE OF WOMAN CASTING BALLOT IN BOX 0.17 4. SCU MAN HOLDING HIS VOTING CARD IN HIS MOUTH AND THEN SLV HANDING OVER IDENTITY CARD 0.29 5. CLOSE OF IDENTITY CARD 0.35 6. VARIOUS OF MAN REGISTERING AND PICKING UP BALLOT PAPERS 0.49 7. SLV MAN WALKING TO VOTING BOOTH 0.58 8. SLV WOMAN WALKING INTO VOTING BOOTH 1L04 9. SLV PEOPLE LINING UP TO CAST THEIR VOTES 1.15 10. WIDE OF MAN AT TABLE WITH BALLOT BOX IN THE FOREGROUND 1.20 11. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (French) MARIANNE OLIVIER, SAYING: "If we look closely at the electoral campaign, it has been extraordinarily poor, so we can understand abstention, I think it is a pity because we are in a democracy, we are lucky to have the chance to vote, so for me it is important to fulfil my duty." 1.35 12. CLOSEUP VOTE BEING CAST 1.39 13. WIDE OF MARIANNE OLIVIER CASTING HER BALLOT 1.44 14. CLOSEUP VOTE BEING CAST 1.50 15. WIDE VIEW OF VOTING STATION 1.52 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 5th April 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Reuters ID: LVA84U1OTJ9EO0LDZ6VT1XMO49GU
- Story Text: French voters have begun casting ballots in Paris
regional elections that could be marked by record
abstention levels.
France's conservative government may face a protest
vote against economic reforms and high unemployment in
regional elections on Sunday (March 21), possibly boosting
the extreme-right National Front.
Pollsters say a record number of French people could
decide not to vote at all in anger over Prime Minister
Jean-Pierre Raffarin's efforts to fill large budget holes
with cutbacks in areas such as health care, research and
education.
Voter Marianne Olivier said she felt it was her duty
to vote. "If we look closely at the electoral campaign, it
has been extraordinarily poor, so we can understand
abstention, I think it is a pity because we are in a
democracy, we are lucky to have the chance to vote, so for
me it is important to fulfil my duty," she said.
But with right and left running roughly equal in
opinion polls, the Raffarin government's economic policies
of privatisation, deregulation and cost-cutting reforms
look likely to stay.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT). First estimates of
results were expected after the closure of the last polling
stations at 8 p.m.
An opinion poll in the daily Le Monde said 70 percent
of those surveyed last week wanted to "show their
discontent" with the government in the voting for regional
assemblies, a two-round poll with a run-off on March 28.
Some 41 million French are due to vote, but abstentions
could climb to 50 percent or more from the 42 percent in
the 1998 vote, latest surveys suggest.
A protest vote against the government, struggling to
cut unemployment from nearly 10 percent, could help the
National Front (FN) of Jean-Marie Le Pen that came a shock
second in France's 2002 presidential election, many
analysts say.
They say the main opposition Socialists are unlikely to
be able to capture many protest votes.
Opinion polls have put the FN near the 15.3 percent
level it won in a 1998 regional vote and any result two or
three percentage points higher would be seen as a serious warning.
After the Madrid bombings, terror threats in France --
both from a shadowy Islamic group and blackmailers warning
of an attack on the railways -- could also help the extreme
right.
Raffarin says the vote has no national significance,
but it does fall midway before presidential and
parliamentary polls in 2007.
France's 22 mainland and four overseas regions have
less power than corresponding German states or Spanish
provinces, but can decide on matters such as schools and
transport.
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