Most French Indifferent to Vote on Shortening Presidential Term
PARIS — The official campaign for France’s Sept. 24 referendum to cut the presidential term from seven to five years got underway Monday amid record voter apathy, with a yes vote virtually assured.
Opinion polls showed that at least 60% of voters will not bother to cast a ballot in the first French referendum since the 1992 endorsement of the Maastricht Treaty on the European single currency.
According to the surveys, however, 77% to 81% of those who plan to vote will back the reform.
More burning issues, such as crippling protests by truckers against high fuel prices, have overshadowed the first rallies.
“The French Turn Their Back on the Referendum,†the tabloid Le Parisien exclaimed Monday in a banner headline.
Both conservative President Jacques Chirac and Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin back the reform.
It is aimed at preventing French-style “cohabitation†between a president and a prime minister of opposing parties, such as the current power-sharing between Chirac and Jospin.
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