French Rightist Cites ‘Detestable Choice’ in Vote : Politics: Le Pen refuses to endorse either Chirac or Jospin in Sunday’s presidential election.

Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen refused Monday to endorse either candidate in France’s presidential election, telling his large bloc of supporters that they are free to make a “detestable choice” between conservative Jacques Chirac and Socialist Lionel Jospin.

The announcement by Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant National Front party, is bound to hurt Chirac, the Paris mayor and presumed choice of most right-leaning voters in Sunday’s election. And Le Pen added to the damage with a vitriolic attack on Chirac, leader of the Rally for the Republic party.

“Jacques Chirac is Lionel Jospin, only worse,” Le Pen told about 15,000 cheering supporters who joined him in marching from the Left Bank to the Place de l’Opera. “Jacques Chirac has betrayed his people, his nation, his faith. He represents the foreign party.”

Just how much damage Le Pen can inflict on Chirac now, less than a week before the final round of the presidential election, is difficult to gauge.

Chirac, 62, appears to have a strong lead over Jospin, a 57-year-old former professor, according to polls here, and France seems as conservative politically as it was when it tossed out the ruling Socialists in elections for the National Assembly two years ago.

But many voters dislike Chirac, a two-time prime minister and twice-unsuccessful candidate for president.

Le Pen emerged as a kingmaker last week with his strong fourth-place finish in the preliminary balloting for president, winning 15% of the vote.

Neither candidate has agreed to make any concessions to Le Pen, although Chirac has said he would keep in place new laws that make it more difficult for immigrants to live and work in France. But together, Chirac and Jospin collected just 43% of the vote in the preliminary round, and each needs substantial numbers of converts from Le Pen’s 4.6 million voters.

Le Pen’s growing political strength has put him in a position to exert substantial influence on national policy, no matter who wins the presidency. If Chirac wins, for example, he can expect pressure from Le Pen to enact more Draconian measures against immigrants and to increase French isolationism in Europe.

Le Pen told his flag-waving supporters Monday to vote for either candidate, “according to your origins, sympathies and dislikes.” But he added that both candidates are “leftists.” With Jospin, he said, “that is clear. But Chirac also is a leftist who will carry out leftist policies under the mask of the right.”

Le Pen said he will wait until after the presidential campaign’s only debate, which will be televised live nationwide in France tonight, to reveal for whom he will vote. In a radio interview Monday, though, he said he had cast a blank ballot in the 1988 final round between Chirac and the eventual winner, President Francois Mitterrand, a Socialist.

On political ideology alone, Le Pen appears much closer to Chirac than to Jospin. But Le Pen’s supporters in the preliminary balloting represented both ends of the political spectrum, from traditional right-wingers to working-class leftists who blame the country’s 12.3% unemployment rate on immigrants.

“The National Front is not a party of the right,” Le Pen insisted. “It is the party of France.”

Chirac has been sharply criticized by Le Pen for backing world trade talks and the Maastricht Treaty on European unity. And Le Pen is likely to exert considerable influence in municipal elections in June.