Word: mitterrand
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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While 20,000 party members sipped beer, munched on páté sandwiches and applauded mightily in the vast Pavilion de Paris last week, France's fiery Communist chief Georges Marchais berated the enemy. No, not the Gaullists, but Socialist Party Leader Francois Mitterrand, Marchais's partner in France's swiftly disintegrating leftist coalition. "Mitterrand has dismissed the case," he declared, referring to the collapse of talks between the parties on revising the common program, the coalition's campaign platform for the March 1978 elections. Shouted Marchais: "The Socialist Party's behavior shows that...
...same day, Mitterrand held forth before a mob of reporters and TV cameramen in a tapestry-lined, marble-walled room in the National Assembly building. Sounding a bit more conciliatory than Marchais, the Socialist leader offered the Communists "an extended hand and an open heart." Nonetheless, he made it clear that his party would not cave in to Communist demands for a platform threatening wholesale nationalization of French industry. "Indisputably," Mitterrand noted, "the political landscape is troubled...
...power anyway. To the delight of centrists and right-wing politicians, the quarreling partners went out of their way last week to emphasize their differences. The Communist daily L'Humanité issued a special 6 million-copy supplement blaming the Socialists for the split; an editorial accused Mitterrand's party of denying workers "a really better life" by refusing "to accept the need to challenge the privileges of the very rich." Anti-Socialist demonstrations by Communist workers were denounced as a "provocation" by Gaston Defferre, the Socialist mayor of Marseille. Questioning the Communists' much-vaunted devotion...
According to this theory, the Socialists will get about 30% of the popular vote, while the Communists will win about 20%. In light of Mitterrand's frequent assurances that the Socialists in power would "control" their Communist allies, some experts argue that Marchais and his colleagues have decided it would be better to stay in opposition than play second fiddle to the Socialists. Another theory is that the Communists fear a Mitterrand volte-face: once in office he would jettison Marchais and try to form a broader alliance with centrist parties headed by President Valery Giscard d'Estaing...
Some experts believe that if the Communists fail to get their revised version of the common program as well as the right to veto any Socialist policy in a leftist government, they will sabotage the election effort. Mitterrand's dilemma last week was acute. If the quarrel is not resolved, the defection of only 2% or 3% of the Socialist vote could prevent the left from getting the 54% it needs to win a majority in the National Assembly. On the other hand, if Mitterrand yields to Communist demands for widespread nationalization, the Socialists could lose the support...