Word: mitterrand
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...midweek, Chirac and U.D.F. President Jean Lecanuet announced a new electoral "pact" of the center-right. Based largely on Chirac's own Reaganesque economic proposals, this joint U.D.F.-R.P.R. platform calls for tax cuts, reduced government spending, and more freedom for business. In short: the negation of everything Mitterrand stands...
Obviously a center-right majority elected on that platform would make it impossible for Mitterrand to put through his economic and social reforms. The President-elect has said that if he did not get a leftist majority, he would try to govern with whatever majority did emerge from the elections. But his room for maneuver would be severely limited. If he attempted to form a coalition with the center, for example, he would almost surely arouse the hostility or outright opposition of the Communists...
...Mitterrand, he remains optimistic that the constitutional hurdles can be overcome somehow. Asked in a pre-election interview whether the lack of a workable majority might doom his presidency, he replied: "I believe that this time the institutions of the Fifth Republic that have barred us from power for so long will contribute to keeping us there." It is a tribute to Charles de Gaulle that one of the most bitter opponents of his constitution is now preparing to adapt it to an entirely new set of circumstances...
...Mitterrand may also be expected to draw on another Gaullist tradition by pursuing an independent and nationalistic French foreign policy-albeit one that may differ from his Elysée predecessors' in some important respects. No clear-cut policy will emerge until after the parliamentary elections, but the broad outlines can be predicted from Mitterrand's stated positions...
Franco-Soviet Relations. Mitterrand is likely to take a harder line toward the Soviet Union than Giscard-despite his relationship with Moscow's most loyal European Communist Party. The President-elect strongly denounced the Afghanistan invasion and, as one senior British diplomat observed, "has no illusions about Soviet motivations and intentions." Pravda, which praised Giscard's commitment to detente and was openly rooting for him in the election, lamented last week that the Socialist leader would probably adopt the " 'tough positions' of the Western side...