The World - News from March 13, 1989

France’s environmentalist Greens Part made a surprise surge in municipal elections while the mainstream right-and left-wing alliances ran virtually neck and neck. Interior Minister Pierre Joxe estimated that only about 70% of the electorate of 38 million voted. Initial results showed President Francois Mitterand’s Socialists and his Communist allies together gaining around 1% more of the vote than in the last municipal elections in 1983. Two conservative parties--Rally for the Republic and Union for French Democracy--lost about 2% of the vote compared with four years ago, while the Greens captured as much as 4% compared to less than 1% in 1983.