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The splintering could not be blamed on public apathy. Though there had been widespread predictions that less than half of France's voters would show up at the polls, in fact 68% did. So the vote pointed to active disgust with traditional parties, politicians and politics.
It is a many-sided mood, in part contradictory. After winning office in 1981, the Socialists engaged in a burst of nationalization of industry that proved disastrous; ever since, the party has followed policies so conservative that to many voters it no longer seems to stand for anything. Mitterrand, at 75 and after nearly 11 years in power, has become an august, remote figure (he is sometimes sarcastically called Dieu, or God) and has seemed at times to lose his touch in foreign affairs, to the detriment of French influence. For example, he tried to resist German unification after the Berlin Wall fell.
The extravagant unpopularity of Prime Minister Edith Cresson is harder to understand. Her acid tongue -- she called the Japanese "ants" and implied that 25% of British men were homosexual -- got her in trouble, but more recently she has been minding her manners. Nonetheless, her popularity has continued to drop, dragging down Mitterrand's with it.
Economically, the situation is mixed. France enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world, but the latest figures on unemployment show a rise to a near record 9.9%. Austerity measures have held inflation to a remarkable 3.1%, even lower than that in Germany. But wages have risen less still, prompting protests not just by industrial workers but also by nurses, judges, social workers and other public employees, leading in turn to a feeling that public order is breaking down.
A rash of financial scandals that prompted politicians of both left and right to get together and grant amnesty to themselves went far toward convincing voters that the entire Establishment is corrupt. All this seems to point toward political paralysis and an uncertain future, during which the political establishment's attention is likely to be preoccupied by jockeying for next year's parliamentary elections.
Under present electoral procedures -- two rounds of voting that in effect squeeze out minor parties -- last week's ballot pattern would produce a heavy conservative majority. That would force Mitterrand, whose seven-year term runs until 1995, to share power with a conservative Prime Minister.
One way for the President to avoid such "cohabitation" might be to institute a system that would fill some or all seats by proportional representation. That might afford at least a thin hope of a Socialist- environmentalist coalition with enough seats to form a government.