Word: humanit
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...short, the French Communist Party's 42nd Fête de I'Humanité last week was outwardly the same as always. Part county fair, part political convention, the annual get-together is a celebration of gastronomy, games and proletarian sloganeering that for two days turns the working-class Paris suburb of La Courneuve into a Communist carnival. Yet for all the gourmandizing hoopla, this year's fete was hardly the joyful event of the past few Septembers, when the party was confidently anticipating a leftist victory in last March's parliamentary elections. In the wake...
Though dissent is not welcome within the pages of L'Humanité, the party paper, critics have had little difficulty finding other forums. Six party intellectuals, writing collectively in Le Monde, charged that the central committee's "no responsibility" position was contrary to the "need for broad and profound reflection on what has happened." Jacques Frémontier, editor of the party magazine Action, penned an open letter of resignation to Marchais: "We made a mistake−on the Socialist Party, on power, on the Common Program, on the union of the left, on tactics...
Would all this dissent have much effect on the party leadership? Not immediately. Commenting on Marchais's speech, L 'Humanité insisted that the address proved that "serious, interesting and positive discussion is unfolding within our party." Marchais himself, when he first heard the rumblings within his ranks, magnanimously announced that "no heads would roll" because of it. That seems a safe bet in his own case, since no one expects any changes in the rigid party leadership any time soon. But if the party continues to learn nothing and forget nothing about the changing shape of France...
...other was the elevation of Health Minister Veil from 14th- to third-ranking member of the Cabinet, behind Barre and Peyrefitte. In all, Giscard's promised "opening" to the left looked to some critics more like an "opening to the past" (as the Communist daily L'Humanit...
...being dominated by the Socialists in a leftist government. Still, Marchais was hardly prepared to explain what his behind-the-scenes strategy had been. His brash postelection comment was, simply, "We are more than ever convinced that a union of the left is necessary." The party daily, L 'Humanité, claimed categorically that "the Communist Party did everything...