Le Pen struggles to qualify for presidential poll

The French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is struggling to qualify for the presidential election next month, despite commanding 10 to 11 per cent of the vote in opinion polls.

To appear on the ballot paper on 21 April, candidates must have the written support of 500 elected officials, from village mayors to members of the national assembly.

Mr Le Pen, who has stood in each of the past four presidential elections, admitted yesterday that he was around 100 signatures short of a complete declaration form, with little over three weeks to the final deadline.

He blamed the supporters of President Jacques Chirac, who, he said, had been threatening local politicians with "reprisals" if they agreed to underwrite a Le Pen candidacy. The National Front leader said that he had gathered firm promises from 600 mayors and other local politicians but "between 10 and 20 per cent" of them had now reneged on their pledges.

Mr Le Pen, 73, said that he "refused to contemplate" the possibility of being excluded from the ballot paper. He went on, however, to threaten reprisals of his own against President Chirac, if the worst came to the worst. "In this hypothesis ... it would be the fall of the house of Chirac," he said.

Some political commentators suggest that Mr Le Pen might be exaggerating his problems to generate sympathy and publicity and to appeal to the perennial conspiracy obsessions of the French far right.

But there are several reasons why Mr Le Pen might be finding it harder to drum up the signatures – the so-called parrains or "godparents" – that he needs this year. The National Front split down the middle in early 1999 and about two-thirds of all far-right elected local officials in France now belong to the rival National Movement led by Mr Le Pen's former number two, Bruno Mégret.

With more minor right-wing and centre-right candidates attempting to join the race than ever this year, Mr Chirac's campaign is struggling to put together a convincing percentage of the vote in the first round of the election on 21 April. By squeezing Mr Le Pen off the ballot paper, Mr Chirac's supporters hope to build up the President's first round score and create an unstoppable momentum for the second round two weeks later.

Mr Le Pen warned yesterday that if this happened he would encourage his supporters to vote for Mr Chirac's great rival, the Prime Minister and Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin.

The other great beneficiary if Mr Le Pen does not stand might be the maverick left-wing nationalist and former interior minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement. He is neck-and-neck with Mr Le Pen in the opinion polls in third place at around 11 to 12 per cent and has been attempting in recent days to capture the votes of disaffected right-wing nationalists.

Earlier this week, Mr Chevènement startled his supporters on the left by declaring himself to be a "man of the right". Yesterday, he outlined his plans for dismantling the European Union and replacing it with a "Europe of nation states", dominated by the "big five" European countries.