Age Gap Found Among Voters In French Race

Economic and Social Issues Sharply Divide Young, Old

S?gol?ne Royal, the Socialist candidate, is backed by 62 percent of voters ages 18 to 24, a poll this week found. (By Guillaume Plisson -- Bloomberg News)

PARIS, April 27 -- Camille Bouchez, a 19-year-old biology student at Paris's Sorbonne university, voted enthusiastically for Olivier Besancenot, a Trotskyist mailman, in the first round of France's presidential election Sunday. And in the second round May 6, she will vote for Socialist Ségolène Royal with equal passion.

"Being a leftist for me is not a matter of fashion," Bouchez explained while sunning herself during a lunch break this week. "I believe in the reforms they want, their idea of a society based on equality." Besides, if conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy wins the elections, "riots are going to break out," she said. "There's no way I can support that!"

Bouchez's view illustrates what election analysts say is a stark division in France's presidential race: the gap between how the very young and the very old are voting. It is a division fueled, they say, not just by the idealism of youth and the cynicism and pragmatism of age, but also by specific economic and social interests that affect their voting blocs. Concerns about unemployment, immigration, social tension and economic growth cut across all age groups but play out most vividly, and differently, at the extremes.

In a telephone survey of 1,010 voters taken immediately after polls closed in the first round of the presidential race, the IFOP polling agency found that 62 percent of voters ages 18 to 24 said they would support Royal in the second round a week from tomorrow. In contrast, 66 percent of voters 65 and older said they would support Sarkozy, candidate of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement.

"It could be tempting to say that the older you are, the more conservative you become. But saying that younger voters are selfless and older people are more fearful, therefore conservative, would be simplistic," said Bruno Cautrès, a researcher at the Institute for Political Sciences in Paris.

In fact, older people have deeper economic ties and less mobility, he said, while young people and students are facing an uncertain job market and potential long-term unemployment, which makes them want to protect France's generous social welfare system.

The IFOP survey seemed to underline that point, showing that Sarkozy was favored over Royal by varying degrees in every age group except the youngest.

While Royal still trails Sarkozy by two to six percentage points in polls for round two, her promise to strengthen and expand the country's social safety net and Sarkozy's aim to lean more on the private sector to solve France's problems have helped Royal build a substantial 3 to 2 edge among unemployed people and students in a recent survey by the Ipsos polling group.

"It's an economic problem -- there are not a lot of jobs and not a lot of hope for young people," Yvon Fraysse, 78, a retired Air France technician, said while watching petanque, a bowling game with metal balls, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. But employment issues are not as dominant for people of his generation, who are more concerned about rising immigration and increasing social tensions, Fraysse said, so he is supporting Sarkozy, a tough law-and-order candidate who has promised strict controls on new immigration.

Political analyst G?rard Grunberg said, "Old people went with Sarkozy because they want order and protection" from civil unrest.

But at the other end of the spectrum, "a big part of the new generation does not like the authoritarian temperament of Nicolas Sarkozy and the way he managed the riots in the suburbs, because they saw that as something against young people," Grunberg said. He was referring to unrest in immigrant and minority neighborhoods outside Paris in 2005. Some critics claim that Sarkozy, then interior minister, helped stoke the unrest by referring to violent youths in the area as "scum."

"I feel more from the right, because of family traditions, but I still voted for Royal for the first round because Sarkozy scares me too much," said Sorbonne student Anne-Charlotte Chassin, 20.

Recent polls found other areas of concern for both candidates. In the Ipsos survey, public employees favored Royal by almost 2 to 1 over Sarkozy, reflecting concern about his goals to reduce the state's 5 million employees and cut back on expensive pensions. In the IFOP survey, Sarkozy was a wide favorite among women, leading Royal 55 to 45 percent.

Royal, who is aiming to be France's first female president, has blamed some of her campaign's struggles on sexism. But her weak support from women highlights the problem she has had courting them; some women say they feel angry that Royal is playing a feminist card but has not been a particularly strong champion of feminist causes in the campaign. Some of her most serious problems, particularly concerns about her competency, were caused by her misstatements.

"S?gol?ne scared me a little during the campaign with her blunders and her lack of charisma," said Nina Rabaudin, 19, a Sorbonne student from Normandy who said she voted for Royal in the first round and would do so again because she favors a leftist candidate.

For many voters, old and young, the choice came down to pocketbook issues.

Martine Savary, 67, a book publisher, said she, too, fears Sarkozy's "authoritarianism" but will vote for him anyway. "Ségolène Royal does not have a program, and on economic issues she's absurd."

Sillian Gueneau, 64, a retired government employee, said he will vote for Sarkozy because his free-market prescriptions will create more jobs.

But Bouchez, the Sorbonne biology student, said it was not her pocketbook but her heart that was driving her decision to back Royal. Sarkozy "favors the private sector and wants to make it easier for people to create their own business, like in the U.S.," she said. "S?gol?ne's view is not an individualistic one. She wants to help everyone, and that's also why I will vote for her."