Word: french
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...French voters queued up at the ballot boxes on Sunday, it appeared that they were ready to oblige the President. Weekend polls gave the Socialists a projected margin of ten to 25 seats beyond the 289 needed for a majority. Although no one was ruling out the possibility of an upset by the conservatives, it appeared the Socialists were more successful at getting out the vote. For Premier Michel Rocard, a moderate Socialist whose government includes a few non-Socialists, a clear majority would mean that he could finally present the National Assembly with a legislative program intended to prepare...
Mitterrand's last-minute presidential plunge into the campaign reflected real Socialist fears that the French electorate, apparently in an unpredictable mood, was capable of anything -- including the return of a conservative majority. The Socialists, who initially expected a landslide victory on the strength of Mitterrand's electoral momentum, faltered in the first round of balloting on June 5. The party won only 37.5% of the vote, compared with 40.5% for the conservative alliance comprising the neo-Gaullist Rassemblement pour la Republique and the center-right Union pour la Democratie Francaise. The Communists, written off after their 6.8% score...
...learn for people who think that everything can be bought. In the garden, virtually nothing can be bought, except a good shovel and good seeds, and time follows its own imperative. The second law, more subtle but no less important, is the value of proportion, of balance, what the French call mesure. Ideally, any gardener would like to serve nature, to participate and share in her mysteries, but he soon learns that nature as such is a constant state of aggression and destruction. Each plant reseeds itself a hundred times too often, and each garden struggles to become a weed...
...took the cause very seriously when Louisiana State Representative Raymond ("La La") Lalonde introduced his bill to allow Cajuns to qualify for minority-set-aside contracts awarded by the state. Amid the bread-and-circuses atmosphere of Louisiana politics, Lalonde's crusade to "enhance the status of the French Acadian people" was seen as a bit of harmless posturing for his constituents. But then the Cajun legislators flexed their political muscle, and the bill sailed through the state house by a vote of 74 to 22, despite the bitter opposition of black legislators. "This is not only facetious but borders...
...daring May 5 rescue of 22 gendarmes and a magistrate held hostage in a jungle cave by New Caledonia separatists was at first hailed as a brilliant coup for French security forces. Then came a dramatic reversal. Last week Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a Socialist, announced he had launched an investigation of charges that soldiers involved in the rescue operation had murdered two hostage takers and failed to provide medical care to a third, who later died of his wounds. All 23 hostages came through the ordeal unscathed...