Word: giscards
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Until recently, Giscard was able to stay regally above the political fray, letting Barre run the country on a day-to-day basis and, conveniently, leaving him to take the heat for unpopular decisions. But now, says Jeanne Labrousse, director of the polling institute I.F.O.P.: "We have reached the point where discontent is so high that Barre cannot absorb it all himself." According to Jacques Attali, a leading Socialist economist, the reason is that Giscard and Barre can no longer promise light at the end of the austerity tunnel. Says Attali: "The French are losing hope." According to a survey...
...deteriorating mood has forced Giscard to modify his Olympian stance. "The feeling of Frenchmen can be characterized by three attitudes: discontent, doubt and worry," he admitted on national television. Even as he spoke, that discontent was being aggravated by new government austerity bites: a punishing jump of a full percentage point in employees' social security contributions and increases in the government-controlled prices of items ranging from rail and air tickets to cigarettes and gasoline (to $2.75 per gal.). Charged Georges Séguy, head of the Communist-dominated C.G.T. union: "This is not austerity, it's plunder...
...political opposition in France has been unable to capitalize on Giscard's troubles. Though Communist Leader Georges Marchais has said, "I'm ready to unite with the devil to checkmate the Giscard-Barre policy," he and Socialist Chief François Mitterrand are bedeviled by a problem: they are not even on speaking terms. There has been no attempt by either man to patch up the bitter ideological split that destroyed their chances of winning last year's legislative elections. Jacques Chirac, the ambitious Paris mayor and neo-Gaullist leader who hopes to challenge Giscard...
...Giscard's sharp decline in popularity has fueled rumors that he may soon replace Barre. "He is an honest man, above all suspicion," Giscard responded when asked about Barre on a television interview. Coming from the President, who had lauded Barre as "the best economist in France," that faint praise appeared to signal a new arm's-length distance between the President and his Premier...
...franc (which has held steady against the West German mark for more than a year) to tumble. In a last-ditch defense of his policies, Barre sounded an emphatic warning against false expectations. "You can replace me, but don't have any illusions," he told a meeting of Giscard's supporters among the members of parliament. "My successor, whoever he is, will be forced to show the same strictness." What Barre obviously meant was that since austerity will not soon give way to prosperity, Giscard will have to find some other route back to Olympus...