Word: gaullists
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...sway their choices. But once the ballots are totted up, the results will be viewed as a key barometer of next year's legislative and presidential elections. And though the local contests have no direct bearing on national politics, their outcomes will inevitably affect the tug-of-war between Gaullist President Jacques Chirac and Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, likely rivals in the May 2002 presidential race...
...presidential victory in 1995, owes more to conservative blunders than to Delanoë's prowess on the hustings. Its problems are rooted in Chirac's choice of Jean Tiberi, a loyal but mediocre lieutenant, as his successor in 1995. "It was a terrible mistake," an official of the Gaullist Rally for the Republic (rpr) party now admits. "It became immediately apparent that Tiberi had no breadth, that he was a pathetic puppet who knew nothing about the world. We put Forrest Gump in the mayor's chair...
Well, it's tough to go that far. France still has one of Europe's highest tax burdens (45.3% of gross domestic product) and one of its most bloated public sectors (accounting for 1 of every 4 French jobs). The leadership is nothing new either; it consists of Gaullist President Jacques Chirac, 67, who has been battling in the political arena for more than three decades, and Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, 62, an austere Protestant who still lapses into old-fashioned leftist rhetoric and heads a coalition that includes one of Europe's last and least-reformed communist parties...
...Jean-Marie Le Pen laughing? Because the truculent, acid-tongued far-right leader sees himself as the real winner of France's parliamentary elections. The snap vote, called by Gaullist President Jacques Chirac in a disastrous blunder, not only ousted a center-right majority that Le Pen reviles, it also vastly increased the clout of Le Pen's anti-immigrant National Front, which polled nearly 15% in the first round of voting and played a decisive role in the June 1 runoff. Though only one party member was elected, because of the mechanics of France's majority voting system...
DIED. JACQUES FOCCART, 83, leading architect of French policy in Africa and adviser to four French Presidents, including Charles de Gaulle; in Paris. An important figure in the Gaullist movement, he operated in clandestine circles to maintain France's power in its former African colonies...