PARIS -- France's presidential election system is meant to ensure both a maximum of democracy and the emergence of a strong national leadership at the end of the two rounds of voting. That was the model set by Gen. Charles de Gaulle when he established the Fifth Republic four decades ago.
After the first round of voting on Sunday, however, France finds itself terribly weakened. Its politics are in the greatest mess ever under the Fifth Republic, and its international standing is at risk.
On Sunday, in which no fewer than 16 candidates were free to run, the heads of the major rightwing and leftwing parties did not expect to get more that 40 percent of the vote between them as people backed everybody from the Trotskyites and two environmentalists to a defender of the country's hunters and anglers.