Word: mitterrand
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Communist Secretary-General Georges Marchais came under widespread attack in party ranks as the cause of the disaster. Critics charged that party leaders' autocratic exercise of "democratic centralism"-the party's code word for unquestioned rule from the top-had provoked the split with François Mitterrand's Socialists and the splintering of the once confident Union de la Gauche. When Marchais chose simply to blame the Socialists rather than examine in cold detail the causes of the March defeat, six party intellectuals took the unprecedented step of attacking the Politburo in Le Monde...
...television interview that French paratroopers had attacked Kolwezi in two waves. "It was necessary," he said, "to carry out the operation as quickly and quietly as possible." Giscard's statement caused something of a stir both at home and abroad. Socialist Party Leader François Mitterrand, speaking before the National Assembly in Paris, said that "it's absolutely impossible to have this kind of operation going on without the Assembly knowing about it." He also charged that the legionnaires' intervention was not justified by France's cooperation agreements with Zaïre. Meanwhile in Brussels...
...scarcely be considered an earthshaking event. In the U.S., of course, Republican leaders regularly drop by the White House to argue with Jimmy Carter. But in France, the opposition has traditionally been treated with about as much regard as a gallon jug of Manischewitz wine. Indeed, the meeting between Mitterrand and Giscard was the first encounter between a key opposition leader and an elected President since the founding of the Fifth Republic...
Both Giscard and Mitterrand were aware that the popular vote (48.4% for the left, 51.6% for the center-right) signaled widespread unease in the nation. Accordingly, Giscard saw the necessity of inviting the leftist opinions-even though, as it turned out, those opinions were boringly familiar. Essentially, Mitterrand was seeking to persuade Giscard to give France's 13.9 million leftist voters a greater voice in political life. He asked for equal time for opposition leaders on government-controlled television and radio. He also pressed for their increased participation in the National Assembly. Finally, he reiterated his party...
...Premier Raymond Barre, who presented his resignation-a mere formality. At week's end Giscard reappointed Barre, confident that the Premier's austerity programs were the essential measures needed to hold back inflation. Austerity was not exactly what the leftist leaders had in mind, but then, Mitterrand, Marchais and the others know that Giscard's engagement at the Palace runs to 1981, while theirs were only one-day stands...