Word: gaullist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That analysis was based largely on the technical recommendations of French nuclear experts for whom Gaullist symbolism counts far less than the behavior of sub-atomic particles. For them, the challenge is to keep France's nuclear force credible beyond the year 2015 or so, when the present generation of warheads will have aged into obsolescence. In addition, say French officials, the objective is to gather the data necessary to perfect the simulation and computer-modeling techniques that will permit French nuclear scientists to forgo live tests in the future and sign the CTBT...
Many analysts, however, took a more cynical view of Chirac's motivations. Recalling that it was Charles de Gaulle who had first engendered France's force de frappe in the '60s, they accused Chirac of trying to prove his Gaullist credentials and burnish his presidential stature by reaffirming France's status as a nuclear power. "He thought he could prove to the French and the world that because of his decision France was back, and he was an authentic President," wrote Serge July, influential editor of the left-leaning daily Liberation. "Instead the world and the French have witnessed...
...accused officers to leave France, and was planning to move a second officer. But the cover was blown on the affair by French presidential-election politics, say officials in both countries. Once a sure bet to succeed Socialist President Francois Mitterrand in the April 23 election, Gaullist Prime Minister Edouard Balladur has recently seen his high poll ratings nose-dive. His campaign was badly damaged by revelations that Pasqua, a Balladur supporter, authorized an illegal wiretap last December on the father-in-law of a judge investigating an illegal campaign-funding scheme in Pasqua's district west of Paris...
That would be a moral victory at best, since political analysts are virtually unanimous in predicting an easy win for Gaullist Prime Minister Edouard Balladur. Jospin's task thus will be to heal, as best he can, the rifts in his divided party and put in a credible performance against Balladur. If he fails on either count--and especially if he is eliminated in the first round on April 23--the party that swept Francois Mitterrand into the Elysee in 1981 and dominated French politics for the better part of a decade could split apart or collapse like an overripe...
...presidency. One by one, conservative leaders, including 25 of 29 current Cabinet members, deserted Chirac for Balladur. The defections need not be fatal for Chirac: he still claims the support of 240 of the R.P.R.'s 350 Senators and Deputies and appears to have the majority of the Gaullist rank and file on his side. But with Balladur enjoying far broader support from the center, the Prime Minister's 2-to-1 lead in the polls is formidable...