Word: frenchmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...dropped soufflé. Candidates seem to have no shared opinions, no established rules of fair play. Nor do they seem to want any." Correspondent Sandra Burton interviewed government officials and French sociologists to assess the impact of the new administration and was struck by the blasé way most Frenchmen greeted the Socialist victory in the parliament. Says Burton: "The only turmoil in Paris on election night was the traffic jam caused by Parisians returning from sunny weekends in the country...
This generation of Frenchmen had never experienced the transfer of presidential power from one side of the political fence to the other, and they were not sure what to expect after Giscard's regal exit. As it turned out, François Mitterrand's inauguration attempted to set a deliberately plebeian tone. France's new Socialist President arrived at the Elysée Palace dressed in a plain, dark flannel suit and a red tie. On hand to greet him at the top of the steps of the presidential palace was Giscard, who, after a brief handshake...
...government. Giscard was using scare tactics that had worked for the center-right ever since the time of De Gaulle. The presence of a strong Communist Party, representing around 20% of the electorate, had always blocked the left from coming to power under the Fifth Republic. This time, though, Frenchmen no longer seemed as alarmed as in the past by a Communist Party that had polled a humiliatingly low 15.3% in the first round of the presidential voting April...
...riding in state down the Champs-Elysées for his inauguration On one occasion he invited a group of Paris garbage men to the Elysée Palace for breakfast. Such superficial tokens of change may have pleased the young but they were too much for tradition-minded Frenchmen who greeted the new style with ridicule. Explains a Western diplomat in Paris: "The French don't want a Jimmy Carter-like President." Wounded Giscard dropped his experiments and withdrew to the dignity of his office...
...applied strong medicine: austerity, tighter credit, cutbacks in social spending. At the same time, he and the President tried to restore a greater measure of free enterprise to the centrally controlled French economy. The treatment won admiration abroad, but not much love at home. Polls show that 65% of Frenchmen have no confidence in Barre's performance. On the other hand, only 52% hold the same view of Giscard...