Word: centrist
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...needing more than 50% of the votes in a field of six to win a first-ballot reelection as President of France, Charles de Gaulle lost. Though he ran first in the field, he got only 44% of the votes cast. Leftist Francois Mitterrand polled a surprising 32%. Catholic Centrist Jean Lecanuet came from nowhere to win 16%, and the three other candidates garnered a total of 8%. The result forced De Gaulle into a runoff next week with Mitterrand-the most resounding and unexpected defeat for a Western political leader since Britain turned Winston Churchill out of office...
Toothsome Telegenicity. Center Candidate lean Lecanuet, 45, drew his support from Centrist De Gaulle himself-and thus was decisive in forcing the runoff. His well-organized advertising campaign depicted him as the youthful symbol of France's future, a kind of French Kennedy ("John Fitzgerald Lecanuet," sneered the Gaullists). His toothsome telegenicity seemed to grow with each appearance on television, though he began the campaign a virtually unknown Senator. His theme was vive the Common Market, vive united Europe, vive NATO. It won the rare endorsement of "Mr. Europe" himself, Jean Monnet...
...fact, it was open season on France's haughty ruler, so delicious a spectacle that it was fashionable in Paris to devise social engagements to include the televised political speeches of the evening. Charged Catholic Centrist Candidate Jean Lecanuet in one of his poised and Kennedyesque talks: "France is last among European nations in production, growth, construction of housing and salaries, leading Europe only in inflation and taxes." Leftist Candidate null Mitterrand aimed his best shot of the week at the force de frappe-"a waste of money that would be better spent on schools." Rightist Jean-Louis Tixier...
What Castello Branco is reportedly trying to do is to find a candidate, conceivably from the opposition Social Democratic Party, who could run on a Social Democratic-National Democratic Union ticket and create a great centrist force that could crush Lacerda or any similar candidate on the right, and whomever is put up by the radical left. Whether Castello Branco can achieve this or not is open to question...
...right-wing military leaders (known as the linha dura) who support Branco do not like the first solution, in which a candidate avowedly hostile to the "Revolution" they helped make might win power. They do not even like Castello Branco's plan to find a centrist candidate. They want either a charismatic right-wing leader strong enough to stand a chance in an open election, or indirect elections with a controlled outcome. The man on a white horse is not yet visible...