Word: frenchmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Then, as the backdrop shifts to fluffy clouds against an azure sky, the voice says, "But France remains calm." A series of happy scenes shows Frenchmen picking grapes, at work in modern factories, riding horses, playing soccer. A crescendo: French-made washing machines, Renault cars, film stars and ballet scenes spell out progress and the good life. Then comes the man who claims responsibility for this idyllic island of well-being in a time of global torment: President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 55, pictured at his desk in the Elysée Palace, meeting foreign leaders, affably...
...been difficult for Giscard to counter a steady stream of attacks against his presidential style and personality. He remains a surprisingly enigmatic figure for many Frenchmen. Is he a liberal reformer or a conservative? Even his supporters disagree. Does he favor firmness or conciliation toward the Soviet Union? The answer is not clear; some of the President's policies seem refined to the point of ambivalence. Mitterrand accuses him of a monarchical style of government. Chirac, Giscard's former Premier, snipes away at what he sees as Giscard's vacillation and weakness in foreign affairs Michel Debr...
...bomb blast ripped through the airport terminal. An emotional Giscard denounced the attack as "cowardly" and vowed not to waver from his schedule. Such rare passionate moments aside, however, even one of the President's most trusted aides admits that "he has not won the hearts of Frenchmen. Giscard is from the Auvergne region, where the people are known for holding in their emotions " Indeed, the President rarely seems genuinely comfortable with crowds while campaigning. "He's not a speaker for the masses," notes Harvard University Professor Stanley Hoffmann, a longtime observer of French politics...
...chauvinistic clichés of the past. (Chauvin, after all, was a Frenchman.) Par exemple, the book points out, "the notion that the Americans could produce anything good to eat or drink used to make us giggle." Faux. Actually, there are several restaurants in New York (run mostly by Frenchmen) that would rank with some of the best in Paris. American restaurants, the book says, "are infinitely more elaborate, elegant and artful than ours." Also, in New York at least, there have never been so many good ones. There are in that city many young chefs who are versed...
...beautiful white people." And France's Prime Minister Raymond Barre, who has a reputation for putting his pied in his bouche, described last October's bombing of a Paris synagogue as "this odious attack that was aimed at Jews and that struck at innocent Frenchmen"-a crack that not only implied Jews were neither innocent nor French but also suggested that the attack would have been less odious had it been more limited...