Word: giscards
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bitter defeat for Giscard, who bowed out after 29 years in government, including nine years as Finance Minister, then seven as President. Within a half-hour of the first computer projections showing that Mitterrand had won, Giscard conceded. The margin of victory was larger than had been predicted: 51.7% for Mitterrand, vs. 48.3% for Giscard...
Throughout the closing weeks of the campaign, Giscard had prophesied darkly that since Mitterrand was backed by the Communists, his presidency would bring chaos-and Communists-into government. Giscard was using scare tactics that had worked for the center-right ever since the time of De Gaulle. The presence of a strong Communist Party, representing around 20% of the electorate, had always blocked the left from coming to power under the Fifth Republic. This time, though, Frenchmen no longer seemed as alarmed as in the past by a Communist Party that had polled a humiliatingly low 15.3% in the first...
...many observers, Mitterrand's own formula for economic reform seems sweeping enough. Blaming Giscard's free-enterprise approach for France's record unemployment of 1.7 million (7.2%), Mitterrand campaigned doggedly on the promise of "another policy." Among other things, it calls for: 1) nationalization of the country's remaining private banks and eleven major industrial enterprises; 2) creation of 1,560,000 jobs, mostly through increased public hiring and a reduction of the work week to 35 hours; and 3) an immediate 25% raise in the minimum wage, to $3.60 an hour. Many French economists view...
...politics but literature. The new President spends hours reading or writing (he has authored ten books on politics) in the library of the town house in Paris' Left Bank where he lives with his wife of 36 years, Danielle. They have two grown sons. In place of Giscard's technocratic competence, Mitterrand offers a romantic if hazy vision of a more humane and just French society. "I don't calculate," says Mitterrand, "I feel...
...foreign affairs makes it difficult to foresee his ultimate course. For example, he has called for a "redefinition" of NATO members' obligations; at the same time, his reluctance to modernize French nuclear weapons implies a greater dependence on NATO's protection. During the campaign, Mitterrand effectively attacked Giscard for his weak responses to the Soviet arms buildup in Europe and the invasion of Afghanistan. Yet the Socialist leader never explained clearly what it was he would have done differently. As for relations with the U.S., chillier days may be ahead, if only because of the ideological chasm between...