Election Trend

According to published figures, more than 3,000 candidates were to contest the elections (on May 11) for 584 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The electorate was said to be dazed by these numbers of candidates, many of whose names the man-in-the-street had never heard.

The outcome of the election seemed to cause not the least apprehension. Able observers prophesied that Premier Poincare would win an easy victory and that the new Chamber would be considerably easier to manage than was the old. It seemed certain that the extreme Left would lose heavily, partly on account of Communist capers with M. Andre Tardieu (TIME, May 5) and Prince Murat (see under). The Moderate Left, under the able leadership of Edouard Herriot, Socialist Mayor of Lyons, was considered likely to strengthen its position. The Extreme Right, led by Royalist Leon Daudet, was expected to lose many seats.

If this estimate be correct, M. Poincare's new bloc (composed of Republicans of varying hue) is safe; for what every lazy French voter wants is security, religious peace, reparations, administrative reform and economy, and those things are what the Premier is striving to give them.