Word: gaullists
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...dates most often guessed were June 18, 1970, the 30th anniversary of his London broadcast urging French resistance, or his 80th birthday later that year. What prompted De Gaulle last week to stop playing coy was that another fox was suddenly being blunt. On a visit to Rome, former Gaullist Premier Georges Pompidou openly declared for the first time that he would be a candidate for President "if the presidency is one day vacant...
Pompidou is certain he could win. His handling of last summer's strikes and riots, he feels, was so adept that "a current" passed between himself and the country. Proof of the current was the Gaullist sweep of the special election in June, which Pompidou masterminded. The former Premier feels that he received a charge as well as a current. When he placed Pompidou "in reserve," De Gaulle asked him to "be prepared to accomplish any mission and to assume any mandate that could one day be confided to you by the nation." Pompidou and almost everyone else assumed...
...country, Frenchmen are worried that fresh economic crises or new disorders may break out. Some questioned the ability of De Gaulle and Premier Couve de Murville to cope with a new onset of troubles. The uneasiness extends into the top echelons of De Gaulle's party. Says Gaullist Secretary-General Robert Poujade: "France is sailing between anarchy and fascism...
...ministers have failed since then to find fundamental solutions. The government, in fact, has not produced a single new law that effectively gets at the roots of the inequities in French society. As the National Assembly's fall term came to an end, Pierre Lelong, a Gaullist Deputy from Brittany, complained, "I have to tell my voters what we have accomplished, but I don't know what to say. We haven't done anything...
Twofold Malaise. In the more formal arenas of politics, France's opposition parties have failed to exploit the Gaullist shortcomings. Reduced by the Gaullist landslide to numerical insignificance in the National Assembly, the parties have turned inward on themselves instead of ganging up on the Gaullists. Split over the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Communists are preoccupied by internal feuds. The Socialists, who are still in shock from their election drubbing, seem psychologically incapable of regaining their old fire. Declares Francois Mitterrand, president of the Federation of the Democratic Socialist Left: "The Federation is more a victim of itself...