Word: chirac
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...with the horn was not that elegantly patrician occupant of the Elysee Palace, President Valery Giscard d'Estaing (who is, after all, not even a Guallist, but a member of the small Independent Republican Party). The bugler was the impatient, youngish Guallist, Jacques Chirac, who only 3% months ago angrily quit as Premier because he felt that Giscard had failed to halt the march of the left in France. Now Chirac was issuing a call to arms that would have pleased De Gaulle: he announced the grand reformation of the moribund Guallist party, formed his battalions and declared...
...great pronouncement was revealed in the form of the consecration of Chirac himself as the new strongman of Gaullism, and it was celebrated at a masterfully staged political extravaganza. The name of the old party, U.D.R. (Union des Démocrates pour la République), was changed to the Assembly for the Republic (Rassemblement pour la République).* Seventy thousand Guallist supporters-the biggest political convention ever-were brought to Paris' Porte de Versailles exhibition hall by ten special trains, 300 buses and charter flights from all over the country. It was an excited, happy crowd...
...suave Giscard and the hard-driving Chirac had once been allied -indeed Chirac had temporarily split the Gaullists to back Giscard for the presidency in 1974. More recently, the two had been rivals, and while they maneuvered for power, the opposition Socialist-Communist union de la gauche won an impressive 53% in last spring's cantonal elections (for regional representative assemblies). The two leaders differed sharply about how to deal with the leftist gains before the next Assembly elections in 1978. Chirac favored a hard-line conservatism. Giscard urged a reformist approach that might win moderates away from...
...Chirac was among them. The Premier first made up his mind to quit in July and sent Giscard a letter of resignation. The President tried to prevail on him to wait until after the traditional month-long August vacation. Chirac did not wait quite that long...
...Chirac's place, the President put a much more genial soul. Formerly Minister of Foreign Trade and for five years Vice President of the European Economic Commission, Barre was notable in the world of Gaullist grandeur for living in a small, book-lined apartment, driving an old Citroën and carrying his own luggage. A portly ex-professor, Barre is highly regarded in academic circles for his textbook entitled Economic Politique. Giscard called him "the best economist in France and therefore the best man to fight the inflation." Barre is expected to initiate spartan economic measures, like higher...