Word: mitterrand
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After devoting 43,000 air miles to international summitry in seven countries, Mitterrand was belatedly paying attention to his national backyard. The interview, conducted by two accommodating TV executives, was an attempt to cast a cloak of presidential conciliation broad enough to reassure his impatient supporters and appease his angry detractors. But it confirmed that neither worsening economic news nor mounting political pressure would deter the new President from fulfilling the sweeping promises made during his campaign...
...Mitterrand acknowledged that the latest economic statistics were disappointing. Unemployment, which the Socialists had vowed to bring down, passed the symbolically sensitive 2 million mark last month and now stands at 8.2% (vs. 7.2% when Mitterrand took office). Inflation roars along untamed at 14% (vs. 12.5% last May). The country's trade balance registered a $1 billion deficit for the month of October alone. But the President predicted that the employment picture would start improving by 1983. He also pledged efforts to bring inflation down to 10%. The success of his seven-year mandate may depend on his ability...
...discontent are already evident. Leftist unions have been stepping up their demands of the government. The Communist-led Confédération Générale du Travail, for example, is holding out for an immediate reduction in the work week from 40 hours to 38; Mitterrand is offering 39. A crowd of 3,000 ecologists staged a violent demonstration two weeks ago at Golfech, in southwestern France, to charge Mitterrand with reneging on his campaign pledge to curtail new nuclear-plant construction...
...Mitterrand's most important challenge comes from the French business community, which lacks confidence in his radical economic program. Mitterrand has raised taxes on business and on individuals with high incomes, increased the government's economic role by moving to nationalize large companies and private banks and boosted state spending on everything from civil servants to welfare benefits. These policies, a representative of the association of small-and medium-size employers warned last week, are "killing the goose that has been laying golden eggs." Uncertain of the future, French industries large and small have cut back...
...television appearance, Mitterrand tried hard to mollify businessmen. While reaffirming that all promised reforms would be carried out on schedule, he pledged not to undertake further nationalizations. Justifying a controversial, although legal, decision to impose certain job-creating social reforms by decree instead of by legislation, Mitterrand declared: "Businessmen need to know the rules of the game."-* At the same time, the government has been cracking down on what appears to be an increasing traffic of money and valuables out of the country. So far, 34 people, including one former member of parliament, have been charged with illegally siphoning currency...