To the Polls!

Scarcely six months after the final wave of anti-parliamentarianism that led to the overthrow of the Fourth Republic, French voters this week were again preparing to elect Deputies, but with a difference: under the Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle has sliced away most of the power of the National Assembly. But the French passion for officeholding brought out 2,822 candidates for only 465 seats in Metropolitan France. In one Parisian district, 16 political hopefuls are battling for the district's single seat. Of the 544 Deputies who had served in the discredited Assembly of the Fourth Republic, 90% are again standing as candidates.

One-Armed Veterans. The candidates include the owner of the Folies-Bergere and the director of France's largest insane asylum. There are taxi drivers and millionaires, market gardeners, dentists, and an explorer of the Amazon basin. And there were old faces in new guises, such as former Premier Georges Bidault, heading a new party that he calls the Christian Democrats, even though he is still honorary president of the once powerful Catholic M.R.P. party.

There was one innovation: 20 of the candidates come from the French army, many of them straight from the fighting in Algeria. They are mostly right-wingers, ranging from General Lionel Chassin, a retired air force officer who leads a fascist-minded splinter group, to Colonel Robert Thomazo (nicknamed "Leathernose" because of a patch he wears over a war wound). In Paris, a one-armed veteran of World War I is opposing a one-armed veteran of World War II.

With the exception of three groups--the Communists, the right-wing Poujadists and a left-wing cluster headed by Pierre Mendes-France--all parties contesting the Nov. 23 elections have resolutely draped themselves in the banner of De Gaulle, although the Premier had sternly announced that he did not wish his name linked with that of any candidate, "even as an adjective." Newspaper offices and picture agencies got scores of phone calls from candidates hopefully asking for pictures showing them together with le Grand Charles on some past occasion. De Gaulle himself, sternly above the battle, personally saw to it that no one gerrymandered the constituencies of two anti-Gaullists, Mendes-France and Francois Mitterrand, so as to cause their defeat.

Strong-Armed Balanceurs. As a guide to voters, France-Soir published a glossary of political terms that made the French campaign sound much like one in Boston's Ward 17 during Mayor James M. Curley's palmiest days. A baron is a heckler who interrupts meetings with prearranged questions enabling the orator to make brilliant rejoinders; a saucepan is the constant heckler sent by an opponent to haunt a rival's meeting. The saucepan is usually dealt with by one's own balanceur, or strong-armed bouncer. A locomotive is a film star or other celebrity who appears on the platform with a candidate and pulls in the crowd.

Undeniably the most powerful locomotive in France today, though he would make no personal appearances, is De Gaulle himself. The Socialists, whose leader Guy Mollet is one of De Gaulle's lieutenants, are expected to win the most seats. The Communists, who held one-fourth the seats last time, are expected to lose from 10% to 20% of them.

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