Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 Background  





2 Opinion polls  



2.1  First round  







3 Results  



3.1  First round  



3.1.1  By department  





3.1.2  By region  







3.2  Second round  



3.2.1  By department  





3.2.2  By region  









4 See also  





5 References  





6 Further reading  





7 External links  














1995 French presidential election






العربية
Català
Dansk
Deutsch
Eesti
Español
Euskara
Français
Italiano
עברית
Lietuvių
Nederlands

Polski
Português
Русский
Sicilianu
Simple English
Suomi

Türkçe
Українська

 

Edit links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 




In other projects  



Wikimedia Commons
 
















Appearance
   

 






From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 


1995 French presidential election

← 1988 23 April 1995 (first round)
7 May 1995 (second round)
2002 →
Turnout78.38% (first round)
79.66% (second round)
 
Nominee Jacques Chirac Lionel Jospin
Party RPR PS
Popular vote 15,763,027 14,180,644
Percentage 52.64% 47.36%


President before election

François Mitterrand
PS

Elected President

Jacques Chirac
RPR

Presidential elections were held in France on 23 April, with a second round on 7 May.

Background[edit]

The Socialist incumbent president François Mitterrand, who had been in office since 1981, did not stand for a third term. He was 78, had terminal cancer, and his party had lost the 1993 French legislative election in a landslide defeat. Since then, he had been "cohabiting" with a right-wing cabinet led by Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, a member of the neo-Gaullist RPR party. Balladur had promised the RPR leader, Jacques Chirac, that he would not run for the presidency, but as polls showed him doing well and he had the support of many right-wing politicians, he decided to run. The competition within the right between Balladur and Chirac was a major feature of the campaign.

Meanwhile, the left was weakened by scandals and disappointments regarding Mitterrand's presidency along with the unemployment rate hovering around 10%. In June 1994, former Prime Minister Michel Rocard was dismissed as leader of the Socialist Party (PS) after the party's poor showing in the European Parliament elections. Then, Jacques Delors decided not to stand as a candidate because he disagreed with the re-alignment on the left orchestrated by new party leader Henri Emmanuelli. This left the field wide open for numerous potential candidacies: among those who are known to have considered a run, or were strongly urged by others, are Jack Lang, Pierre Joxe, Laurent Fabius, Ségolène Royal and Robert Badinter. Former party leader and education minister Lionel Jospin was chosen by PS members as the party's candidate in a primary election pitting him against Emmanuelli. He promised to restore the credibility and moral reputation of his party, but his chances of winning were seen as being thin. The economy was also still struggling with a depression which began in mid-1990, and the government's policies were widely blamed for both the recession and its slow recovery.

The French Communist Party (PCF) tried to stop its electoral decline. Its new leader Robert Hue campaigned against "king money" and wanted to represent a renewed communism. He was faced with competition for the far left vote by the Trotskyist candidacy of Arlette Laguiller, who ran for the fourth time. Both of these candidates had a better result than their parties had in 1988, but came nowhere near being able to participate in the next round. In choosing Dominique Voynet, the Greens opted for their integration with the left.

On the far-right, Jean-Marie Le Pen tried to repeat his surprising result that he obtained in the 1988 presidential election. His main rival for the far-right vote was Philippe de Villiers, candidate of the eurosceptic parliamentary right. Both candidates primarily focused over the financial situation.

In January 1995, when he announced his candidacy, Balladur was the favourite of the political right. According to the SOFRES polls institute, he held an advantage of 14 points over Chirac (32% against 18% for the first round). He took advantage of his "positive assessment" as Prime Minister and advocated a moderately liberal economic policy. Chirac denounced the "social fracture" and criticised the "dominant thought", targeting Balladur. Chirac argued that "the pay slip is not the enemy of employment". Indeed, unemployment was the main theme of the campaign. From the start of March, Chirac gained ground on Balladur in the polls. Another factor that contributed to Balladur's fall in popularity was the revelation of a bugging scandal which had implicated Balladur.[1]

Chirac's campaign slogan was "La France pour tous" ("France for everyone"); Balladur's "Believe in France"; and Jospin's "A clear vote for a more just France".

Opinion polls[edit]

First round[edit]

Polling
firm
Fieldwork
date
Laguiller
LO
Hue
PCF
Voynet
LV
Delors
PS
Jospin
PS
Rocard
PS
Giscard
UDF
Balladur
RPR
Chirac
RPR
de Villiers
MPF
Le Pen
FN
Cheminade
FNS
Sofres 20-21 Apr 1995 5% 9.5% 4% 20.5% 16.5% 24% 6% 14% 0.5%
Sofres 13-14 Apr 1995 5% 8.5% 3.5% 21% 16% 26% 6.5% 13% 0.5%
BVA 12-14 Apr 1995 5% 10% 4% 19% 16% 26% 6% 14% 0%
Sofres 8-10 Apr 1995 4.5% 8.5% 3% 21% 19% 26% 5% 13% 0%
Sofres 4-5 Apr 1995 4.5% 8% 3.5% 22% 20% 24% 5.5% 12% 0.5%
Sofres 25-27 Mar 1995 3.5% 8% 3.5% 21% 18% 26% 6.5% 13% 0%
Sofres 21-22 Mar 1995 3% 8.5% 2.5% 22% 17% 26% 7% 13%
Sofres 11-13 Mar 1995 3.5% 8% 2.5% 20% 20% 27% 6.5% 12%
Sofres 8-9 Mar 1995 4% 9% 3.5% 21% 20% 24% 7.5% 10.5%
Sofres 21-23 Feb 1995 3% 7% 5% 24% 23.5% 19% 7.5% 11%
Sofres 7-9 Feb 1995 3% 7% 4% 22.5% 28% 17.5% 6.5% 10.5%
Sofres 24-26 Jan 1995 3% 7% 3% 17% 32% 18% 7% 12%
Sofres 10-12 Jan 1995 2.5% 6% 4% 20% 29% 17% 9% 11.5%
Sofres 26-28 Dec 1994 3.5% 6% 3.5% 22% 10% 25% 14% 4% 12%
Sofres 5-7 Dec 1994 3% 5% 3% 32% 5% 25% 12% 5% 10%
Sofres 22-24 Nov 1994 3.5% 5% 3% 31% 5% 25% 15% 5% 8%
Sofres 5-9 Nov 1994 3.5% 5% 3% 26% 4.5% 28% 18% 4% 9%
Sofres 4-6 Oct 1994 4% 5% 1.5% 29.5% 6% 28% 14% 3% 9%
Sofres 6-8 Sep 1994 2.5% 3.5% 2% 27% 5% 30% 16% 4% 10%
Sofres 2-5 Jul 1994 3% 4% 4% 26% 8% 28% 16% 11%
Sofres 7–9 May 1994 2.5% 6% 4.5% 26% 6% 28% 17% 10%
Sofres 24-25 Mar 1994 2% 5% 4% 25% 7% 29% 17% 11%
Sofres 3-5 Mar 1994 2.5% 4.5% 4% 24% 7% 33% 14% 11%

Results[edit]

CandidatePartyFirst roundSecond round
Votes%Votes%
Lionel JospinSocialist Party7,097,78623.3014,180,64447.36
Jacques ChiracRally for the Republic6,348,37520.8415,763,02752.64
Édouard BalladurRally for the Republic5,658,79618.58
Jean-Marie Le PenNational Front4,570,83815.00
Robert HueFrench Communist Party2,632,4608.64
Arlette LaguillerWorkers Struggle1,615,5525.30
Philippe de VilliersMovement for France1,443,1864.74
Dominique VoynetThe Greens1,010,6813.32
Jacques CheminadeFederation for a New Solidarity84,9590.28
Total30,462,633100.0029,943,671100.00
Valid votes30,462,63397.1829,943,67194.03
Invalid/blank votes883,1612.821,902,1485.97
Total votes31,345,794100.0031,845,819100.00
Registered voters/turnout39,992,91278.3839,976,94479.66
Source: Constitutional Court, Constitutional Court

First round[edit]

Lionel Jospin won the first round, in what appeared to be an electoral recovery for the Socialist Party. His right-wing challenger for the runoff vote on 7 May was Jacques Chirac and not Edouard Balladur. Defeated, Balladur endorsed the RPR candidate. Jean-Marie Le Pen repeated his good result of the previous presidential election.

By department[edit]

By region[edit]

Second round[edit]

During the TV debate between the two finalists, they disagreed about the presidential term. Jospin wanted to reduce it to five years whereas Chirac was in favour of the seven-year term. The PS candidate responded: "The choice is five years with me or seven years with Jacques Chirac, which will be very long". Eventually, the presidential term was reduced to five years after the 2002 election.

Chirac was elected President and Balladur resigned as prime minister. Foreign minister Alain Juppé succeeded him.

By department[edit]

By region[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1995_French_presidential_election&oldid=1221531439"

Categories: 
1995 elections in Europe
1995 elections in France
MitterrandPasqua affair
Presidential elections in France
April 1995 events in France
May 1995 events in France
Hidden categories: 
Pages using the Graph extension
Pages with disabled graphs
Articles with short description
Short description is different from Wikidata
Use dmy dates from June 2020
Articles to be expanded from October 2021
All articles to be expanded
Articles using small message boxes
Webarchive template wayback links
All articles with dead external links
Articles with dead external links from January 2024
 



This page was last edited on 30 April 2024, at 13:53 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



Privacy policy

About Wikipedia

Disclaimers

Contact Wikipedia

Code of Conduct

Developers

Statistics

Cookie statement

Mobile view



Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki