Word: mitterrand
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Mitterrand himself has warned about a "threshold of tolerance" for immigrants, and Jacques Chirac, the conservative mayor of Paris and former Prime Minister, has weighed in to the debate with a vengeance. He voiced sympathy for French families who have to live with the "noise and smells" of tenements inhabited by the newcomers. Cresson proposed last week to charter aircraft to send unlawful immigrants home, but an outburst of protests from fellow Socialists in Parliament caused her to withdraw the idea...
...recipe for trouble? For a civilization that may be the fastest changing in Europe, France has shown remarkable resilience and political staying power. The existential debate has not deflected Mitterrand from his nouveau Gaullism, a policy of working with and through Germany to secure a decisive say over the Continent's future. In the E.C.'s halls of power France remains paramount, and relations with Washington, prickly at the best of times, are on a surer footing...
...past Americans and others in the West often saw Paris as a withered peacock, strutting grandiosely when it was not perversely kicking up dust, the firmness with which Mitterrand steered his nation after the gulf war's outbreak gave their old ally a taller stature. France is still a tough customer on many issues -- agricultural subsidies, for example, the big snag in the current troubled round of world-trade talks. Stubbornness is the Gallic style: a demonstrated readiness to scuttle agreements is Paris' way of showing that it means business...
...country views its new challenges as especially dicey. Its postwar identity depended on the postwar system, which has come unglued. Mitterrand's ambitions for E.C. political union and a joint defense policy are central to his design of preserving France's status as the Continent's anchor. Washington-based analyst Jenonne Walker notes, "De Gaulle was never willing to meld France into a Europe able to act as a unit. Mitterrand is willing to do that." Trickier is the question of whether the French people, fearing for their national soul, will go along...
...Mitterrand himself has adjusted to the idea of France as a middling power. Under him, says economist Peter Ludlow, director of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies, "France came to terms with the fact that it was the end of the era of medium-size states with protectionist policies." Germany continues to rely on its partner in a relationship that is more a symbiosis than an axis. "Paris and Bonn," says German policy analyst Ingo Kolboom, "are condemned to act in concert." Jean-Pierre Cot, the French chairman of the European Parliament's Socialist bloc, sees a bright...