Word: mitterrand
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...will contrast sharply with the Olympian manner patented by De Gaulle and copied, with minor modifications, by Georges Pompidou right up through the fatal end of his never-acknowledged struggle with cancer eight weeks ago. On election night, Giscard not only pointedly offered "a very cordial salute" to Mitterrand but did so in English as well as French-a cultural heresy that raised eyebrows even on the political left. Said former Premier Pierre Mendes-France, a Mitterrand supporter: "Yes, I can see it now. France will become the 51st state before Puerto Rico...
Open Style. While the vote was a near standoff, it did bring Giscard to power with a clear mandate for social and economic reform. In a conciliatory, low-keyed victory speech that seemed aimed as much to Mitterrand's crestfallen leftist backers as to his own supporters on the right, Giscard said: "I have understood in this campaign that you wanted change. You will not be disappointed." Giscard also promised French voters that they would be "surprised at the breadth and rapidity" of the changes he would bring to France after 16 years of conservative Gaullist rule. Those changes...
...Mitterrand, who remains head of France's Socialist Party despite his defeat, has promised that the left will give Giscard "neither a pause nor a truce." He plans to force the President to make good on every one of his promised social reforms. This could be troublesome, for Giscard's reforms-among them, an immediate increase in the minimum wage from $226 to $260 a month -would cost the French economy more than $4 billion a year at a time when the country is already borrowing heavily just to pay for its Arab...
Even if the leftist-dominated unions hold off on strike activity until after the August holidays, Mitterrand and his allies can make trouble for Giscard in the National Assembly, where the Socialists and Communists hold 174 of the 490 seats. With only 55 seats in the hands of his own Independent Republican Party, Giscard needs the support of the Gaullists (183 seats) and some Centrist deputies if he is to govern effectively. The Gaullists have never cared for Giscard, who broke with the party in the 1969 referendum on regional reform that led to De Gaulle's fall from...
Still, the Maugards are not where they would like to be. "Everything is rising but my husband's salary," says Yvette. "Like most workers, I'm very, very discontented." Both voted for Mitterrand, who they thought would do more for the workers. "We didn't like Giscard," says Yvette with finality. "He's not from our kind of family...