Word: frenchmens
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...youthful Frenchmen were careering jubilantly through the streets of Paris, trailing red flags from their cars and chanting, "We've won! We've won!" Standing in the chill spring rain at the Place de la Bastille, others laughingly shouted, "Mitterrand, give us some sun!" Even as a joke, that demand was a measure of the Impossible hopes raised by French President François Mitterrand's election victory two years ago, a historic occasion that brought to an end 23 years of conservative rule...
...national interest. Clouds of tear gas rising over the center of Paris, gangs of masked students clashing with riot police in the Latin Quarter, banner-bearing protest marchers, including farmers, doctors, teachers, retailers and small businessmen-all these signs of widespread unrest seemed disturbingly familiar to many Frenchmen. There were nagging fears of a repetition of the popular upheaval in May 1968 that rocked Charles de Gaulle's regime to its foundations and led to his departure from office a year later. Was the same thing now happening, in reverse, to a Socialist President...
...conservative predecessors ever proposed. He chopped $7 billion in current spending, imposed a 1% personal income surtax and required each taxpayer to make a loan to the state equal to 10% of last year's income tax. The measures would diminish the purchasing power of virtually all Frenchmen, but they were especially resented by the already hard-hit middle-and upper-income brackets...
...government's rationale is that the 8 million French citizens who traveled abroad last year spent $4.9 billion, or more than a third of the trade deficit. The government hopes to slice that sum in half, although some analysts predict that, given the ability of most Frenchmen to circumvent rules, one-fifth would be more realistic. But the negative effects will be substantial. State-owned Air France, for example, could lose 1 million passengers this year...
...bureaucracy that still has to come to terms with what is clearly an administrative nightmare, one commentator proposed that travelers simply smuggle their money out. "Just walk with your head high and the bills stuffed in your pockets. The customs agents won't think to look there." Although Frenchmen can usually be counted upon to find ways around restrictions, the latest curbs were not a joke but a singular admission that the Socialist government's economic program was failing...