The elections are two-stage elections.

Furthermore, after a pair of two-stage elections spanning almost two months, "the French are victims of a kind of civic exhaustion," he said.

The first round of France's two-stage presidential election is on April 24, but already one might-have-been front-runner, Raymond Barre, has stumbled badly.

But, as France gears up for a two-stage parliamentary election starting next Sunday, that reflexive dismissal of the National Front is under challenge.

In a two-stage election, on May 3 and 17, voters had the opportunity to create some order out of this social entropy, and if local analysts are correct they demonstrated admirable wisdom.

Jean-Marie Le Pen made a powerful showing in the first round of France's two-stage presidential election by campaigning on an issue that rallied an embittered coalition.

Mr. Mitterrand, in a brief television interview, said he would be a candidate in a two-stage presidential election that will culminate in a runoff vote on May 8.

Direct, one- or two-stage elections are used to elect the president for a term of six years and for a maximum of two consecutive terms.

Both Mr. Chirac's conservatives and the opposition Socialists and Communists who hope to unseat them in the two-stage elections take the Front's challenge seriously.

The crackdown began immediately after the coup on Jan. 11, which abruptly ended two-stage elections that appeared certain to give the fundamentalists control of Parliament.