France’s Front-Runners Dumb Down the Race    • Print   •
Reprints  PARIS It's an ancient maxim of French politics, so
overused as to have lost much of its sting, but a survivor all
the same: The French right is the stupidest in the world.  World
Twitter Logo.  Connect With Us on Twitter  Follow @nytimesworld
for international breaking news and headlines.  Twitter List:
Reporters and Editors  And the left?  Look no further than the
first round of the presidential elections five years ago, when
the Socialists were eliminated because they refused to
acknowledge as a legitimate central issue the public's fear of
street crime linked to France's immigrant population. You could
call it an ideological blockage. Or plain dumb.  Now, with
presidential elections scheduled for late April or May next
year, just when the right seems to be gearing up to reclaim its
old self-destructive title, the left is there as a rival again.
The situation: On the right, people like Prime Minister
Dominique de Villepin and Defense Minist