PARIS - The drive from La Courneuve to the 17th arrondissement of Paris takes eight minutes. In those eight minutes, you travel a thousand light-years.

In both places yesterday, polling stations had been set up in primary schools. In both places, the voters chose from piles of slips of paper pre-printed with the 12 candidates' names.

In both places, the electors retired behind the same kind of flimsy, grey curtains in the same kind of portable voting booths. They placed the name of their chosen candidate in the same sky-blue envelopes, marked "Republique Francaise"....