PARIS, May 20 (Xinhuanet) -- The legislative campaign in France
started Monday with a record number of 8,424 candidates competing
for 577 seats of deputies to the National Assembly, or the lower
house of parliament.
   The number of candidates who signed up before the Sunday
midnight deadline is 32.4 percent higher than that of five years
ago when 6,361 candidates ran for the legislative election. Among
the candidates this year, 38.5 percent are women.
   This year's legislative election is the first to take place
under a law enforcing an equal number of men and women candidates.
   The candidates, drawn up centrally by each party or party group,
are then assigned to different constituencies around the country.
The 577 constituencies, 555 in mainland France and 22 in overseas
departments and territories, vary in size with each deputy
representing approximately 100,000 inhabitants.
   After the first round of election on June 9, which was open to
all candidates, those who get more than 12.5 percent of the votes
will qualify for Round Two a week later.
   Unlike the presidential election that produces two finalists,
the legislative poll might witness a three-way battle in Round Two
in many constituencies with three candidates making through.
   In order to minimize the risk of dispersion of votes among
several candidates of the same camp, three major right-wing
parties created the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP in
French) two weeks ago and presented a common list of 533
candidates.
   The UMP consists of the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (
RPR) -- which is created by President Jacques Chirac in 1976,
Liberal Democracy (DL) -- whose deputy chief Jean-Pierre Raffarin
now heads the Chirac-nominated interim government and the Union
for French Democracy (UDF) led by former presidential candidate
Francois Bayrou.
   Bayrou, who came fourth with 6.8 percent in May's presidential
election, personally refused to join the UMP and promised to
maintain about 100 candidates at his call.
   The group of the "plural left", including socialists,
communists, greens and far-leftists, agreed on a joint list of 170
"candidates of union."
   The far-right Front National (FN) led by Jean-Marie Le Pen
presented 563 candidates, almost in all constituencies. Le Pen had
pledged a comeback in legislative race following his defeat in
presidential run-off on May 5.  Enditem