DeGaulle Gets Less Than Majority In Multi-Party Presidential Election

French voters yesterday decisively rejected Charles DeGaulle's call for "massive" support and failed to give him even a majority vote in the five-party presidential election. Incomplete returns last night gave De Gaulle 45 per cent of the vote.

A runoff election will almost certainly be held on Dec. 19 between DeGaulle and Francois Mitterrand, the Socialist candidate who finished behind DeGaulle and ahead of Jean Lecanuet, a young moderate who calls himself the French Kennedy. Lecanuet was credited with having kept from DeGaulle the crucial five per cent of the vote which would have meant election.

"Everyone except Lecanuet represented the old regime. Lecanuet was a change," Patrick L. Higonnet '58, instruct or in History, said last night. Higonnet explained that most of the young intellectual middle class are hostile to DeGaulle's anti-Europeanism and were attracted to Lecanuet's program of European cooperation.

The French Kennedy

Marcel A. Francon, associate professor of French Literature, said last night that Lecanuet also attracted support with his slogan "the French Kennedy." "He appealed to conservatives who want close economic ties with America," Francon explained.

There is no doubt that DeGaulle will win the runoff election, H. Stuart Hughes professor of History, emphasized last night. He said that Lecanuet and DeGaulle drew support from basically the same group of voters, and that most of Lecanuet's vote will shift to DeGaulle.

"But De Gaulle might just quit," Higonnet speculated. "He's capable of doing anything." Higonnet believes that the election result is due as much to DeGaulle's attitude throughout the three-week campaign as to the appeal of his opposition. "He was terribly contemptuous of the others." Higonnet said, "but people just were not contemptuous of Lecanuet."

In addition, Higonnet explained, many different groups in France object to DeGaulle for different reasons. Intellectuals object to his international conservatism, the "rank and file" to his domestic conservatism. However, he thinks that DeGaulle will win the runoff election if he chooses to run. "People might get scared," Higonnet said. "They know there can be a runoff, so on the first vote they can afford to vote for someone they don't really want to see win."

In the past, Higonnet explained. DeGaulle "always relied on the weakness of the other political institutions. But maybe they are not as weak as everybody thought," he noted.