PARIS -- An old French proverb says "only the stupid never change their mind." In that case, the French certainly aren't dumb. In the first round of last April's presidential election, Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin got only 16 percent of the vote. Extreme rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen won more votes, preventing Jospin from advancing to the second round.
To the surprise of all, Jospin immediately announced the end of his political career, and his party had no choice but to ask everybody to rally against fascism and vote for incumbent Gaullist President Jacques Chirac. Chirac won two weeks later with more than 82 percent of the vote, but in the first round he had received only 20 percent of the vote.
The returns from the March 22 and March 29 regional council elections have nothing in common with those results. Since 1998 the right had held the presidency of 14 regions and the left, eight. On March 29, though, the percentage of second-round votes for the Socialists and their Communist, Radical and Green allies reached 50 vs. 37 for the right. The left's advance was of such magnitude that in the second round it would have won in 14 regions even without the presence of the extreme right.