International

Raffarin may win poll

Paris June 16. French voters were largely staying away from the polls in today's second round of parliamentary elections, which the centre-right coalition supporting the President, Jacques Chirac, was strongly favoured to win.

At noon, 20.33 per cent of the some 37 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, according to the Interior Ministry. This represented a slight improvement over last Sunday's first round, when only 19.73 per cent had voted by noon. However, voter turnout for that election was only 64.41 per cent, the lowest in modern French history.

Fifty-eight of the 577 seats in the National Assembly were decided in the first round, and 1,045 candidates were facing off today in the remaining races. A poll, published on Friday in Le Figaro, predicted that Mr. Chirac's Union for a Presidential Majority and its allies would win a majority.

— DPA

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