Word: mitterrand
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...counter such rhetoric Mitterrand has been emphasizing his career as a responsible statesman. In fact, there is little on the surface that is frightening about him. He has been denounced as an "opportunist" more often than as a "revolutionary." During the Fourth Republic, he served in eleven governments, some of them under rightist Premiers. His portfolios ranged from Minister of Overseas Territories to Minister of the Interior. Although he has been a Socialist for much of his political life, he still says: "I am not a Marxist...
Because of his electoral alliance with the Communists, Mitterrand must continually stress that he is not the party's puppet. It is almost inevitable that he would put some Communists in his Cabinet, but he has denied rumors that he would appoint Communist Party Leader Georges Marchais as Premier. That job, declared Mitterrand, would go to a Socialist. He has hinted that there would even be room in his government for centrists and left-wing Gaullists...
While busy wooing middle-of-the-road voters, Mitterrand has managed to becloud the crucial issue of what radical changes his presidency might bring. In foreign policy, he has distanced himself from his Communist partners by declaring: "France belongs to the Western world, the Atlantic world." He has said that his dealings with the U.S. would not be "so very different" from those of the current regime "but would be less abrasive." On domestic issues, he has downplayed parts of the Socialist-Communist platform that call for greater nationalization of industry and for a crash housing program by asserting that...
Serious Challenge. The specter of a leftist government has already spurred some wealthy Frenchmen to move their money abroad. For example, one top attorney admits that he drives regularly into Switzerland to deposit his own and his clients' funds in secret bank accounts there. Mitterrand nonetheless may be succeeding in his tranquilizing campaign. The right-wing Paris journal Minute warned last week: "Mitterrand has already won a great battle: he no longer frightens...
...Still, a Mitterrand presidency would not be without its frightening aspects. "A Mitterrand victory," observes TIME Chief European Correspondent William Rademaekers, "could bring back all the uncertainties of the Popular Front government of the mid-'30s. One could expect a decline in business confidence and a rush to get assets out of the country, including the billions of francs stashed away in mattresses. Despite Mitterrand's comforting promises, the residual fears of the left will not quickly disappear. Outside France, Communists in the Cabinet of a major West European power would give Communist parties in other nations legitimacy...