Caption: (PAR3)VICHY, France, May 18--CANDIDATE: D'ESTAING AT VICHY--Conservative presidential candidate Valery Giscard d'Estaing, right, arrives at Vichy airport, in central France, Saturday before driving south to nearby Chamalieres where he will cast his ballot in the French presidential election Sunday. Persons with him are unidentified. (AP WirephotoD'ESTAING via Cable from Paris)(gdh71835pw)1974Conservative Giscard Wins in France-But Just Barely PARIS-(UPI)-Valery Giscard d'Estaing, an aristocratic wizard of finance, was narrowly elected president of France Sunday with voters rejecting a Socialist who would have shared power with the Communists. The new president immediately promised "an era of renewal and change." Results showed it was the closest presidential race in a Western democracy since John F. Kennedy beat Richard M. Nixon by 118,550 votes in America in 1960. Computers predicted that fewer than 300,000 votes or one percent of the electrorate probably would be the final margin. WITH MORE than 95 percent of polling stations reporting Interior Minister Jacques Chirac said, "We may say as now Mr. Giseard d'Estaing has been elected president of the French Republic." At that point Giscard d'Estaing had 50.7 percent (12,806,769 votes) against 49.3 percent (12,453,041 votes) for Francois Mitterrand. Giscard d'Estaing, 48, who will be France's second youngest head of state since Napoleon, saluted his rival, the communist-backed Mitterrand, 57, and said: "A new era of French politics starts today." The election of a successor to President Georges Pompidou, who died April 2, produced and record turnout of 87 percent, the most people ever to vote in an French election. Giscard d'Estaing cannot officially be proclaimed president until the Constitutional Council meets Sunday, but latePlease turn to Page 10A, Col. 1.
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