Word: mitterrand
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There were more than enough rumors and full-blown theories last week to tantalize those who were curious about President Francois Mitterrand's motive in expelling Soviet officials from France. Perhaps the most intriguing hypothesis centered on the unsolved murder of a top French intelligence officer two months ago. One morning last...
...notwithstanding, secret agents generally avoid killing one another: it is considered a violation of the rules of the game and can lead to reprisals. Still, many West Europeans wondered last week whether the violent murder of so high-ranking a spook had not played a key role in persuading Mitterrand that it was time to send the Soviet officials packing...
...sheer boldness of the decision that shocked Moscow, delighted Western capitals and dramatized the dimensions of the Soviet espionage effort in Western Europe. More than three months ago, French President François Mitterrand had been given a report by his Interior Ministry on the intensifying activities of the Soviet spy network in France. Mitterrand could have responded like his predecessor, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, with traditional French diplomatic discretion, by quietly declaring a few of the more fla grant Soviet offenders personae non gratae. Instead, in a move unprecedented for France, the President ordered the expulsion...
...resounding phrases sounded gloriously libertarian four years ago. But by last week French President Fracçois Mitterrand must surely have regretted the words he spoke as an opposition leader in 1979. In an effort to help cure an increasingly ailing economy, his government had laid a heavy official hand on one of the most hallowed of French traditions, the vacation...
...longer be used abroad. Said Jean-François Deniau, who was Foreign Trade Minister under former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing: "We are condemned to spend our vacations in the countryside with Grandmother." Particularly ironic was the fact that shortly after his election, Mitterrand fulfilled a campaign promise by adding a fifth week of vacation...