Word: mitterrand
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Whether he does so or not, there is little doubt that François Mitterrand will be the real power in France until at least 1986. It is on the basis of his own acts, and not his ideology, that he will be judged. Addressing a word of advice to Americans, L.S.E.'s Dahrendorf cautions: "Don't think that because it is a Socialist government, it must pursue policies unacceptable to the U.S. Hold off and see what they do in practice. If you do that, you may end up finding Mitterrand's France easy to live with." And so might...
...Mitterrand's legislative victory was also a vindication of his long-range political strategy. After winning the presidency last month with a surprise victory over Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the center-right incumbent, Mitterrand disbanded the National Assembly, which had been controlled by Giscard's coalition, an amalgam of the Gaullist and centrist forces that had run the government for 23 years. In the campaign to elect a new Assembly, Mitterrand was threatened from two directions. If the right regained control of the chamber, France could face a constitutional crisis; the institutions of the Fifth Republic are not designed...
Despite the high stakes for him as well as the nation, François Mitterrand stayed serenely above the battle, employing the same tactic that had served him so well in the last stages of the presidential race. Embodying the force tranquille of his campaign slogan, he issued only one brief political statement last week, urging voters to "give me the means to apply my program." The new President actually sought to avoid appearing in public or on television. Leaving campaign strategy in the hands of Premier Pierre Mauroy, Mitterrand spent his long workdays huddling with aides over economic reform plans...
...Most of Mitterrand's evenings were spent at small, informal Elysée dinners. Gone was the stiff Giscardian protoco that required the President to be served before his guests. Mitterrand's conversation at these gatherings was often far removed from electoral concerns. Recounts Brother-in-Law Hanin: "We talked about Jean Renoir and his films, theater, trees and tennis." Even as the new President was being helicoptered to his own parliamentary district, at Château-Chinon, to vote in the first round of the legislative balloting, he appeared utterly oblivious to politics, absorbed in a contemporary Japanese novel...
...quiet confidence, even Mitterrand must have been surprised by the magnitude of the Socialist sweep, which was apparent as soon as the first-round results began to trickle in on the evening of June 14. Surpassing even the most optimistic polls, Socialist candidates won 37.5% of the popular vote?half again as much as Mitterrand's first-round total on the April 26 presidential ballot. The neo-Gaullists and Giscardians took 20.8% and 19.2% respectively...