Volume 35, Number 13 · August 18, 1988

The Big Muddle in France

By Stanley Hoffmann

Between April 24 and June 12, the French voted four times—twice, on April 24 and May 8, for the election of the president of the republic, twice, on June 5 and 12, for a new National Assembly. The results confounded all advance predictions, and interpreting them has become an industry: virtually every political leader and expert in France claims that something of historical importance happened, but few agree on just what it was. I will here try both to derive some lessons from the elections, and to discuss the serious problems the French now face.[1]



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