Word: mitterrand
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...being effectively challenged from both the left and the right. On the left, his closest rival, perennial Socialist Candidate François Mitterrand, 64, a narrow loser in the presidential election of 1974 and parliamentary vote of 1978, has been gnawing away at Giscard's centrist support. Behind him, Communist Candidate Georges Marchais, 60, is fighting to improve on the 20.55% his party obtained in 1978. On the right, Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, 48, leader of the Neo-Gaullists, has made surprising advances among conservatives and suddenly emerged as a still unlikely, but just possible, second-round challenger...
Marchais's speech was characteristic of the perverse, often perplexing performance that has made him the spoiler of the campaign. That role has taken on a bizarre urgency as the two-round election draws close. Polls indicate that in the first round, April 26, Mitterrand should handily defeat both Marchais and the fourth challenger, Gaullist Leader Jacques Chirac, and run a close second to Giscard...
...that event Giscard and Mitterrand would face each other in a May 10 runoff, and Marchais's Communists could be instrumental in swinging the outcome either...
Marchais bills himself as the "anti-Giscard candidate," but the non-Communist French press routinely describes his speeches as "doubletalk." One prominent Socialist leader goes so far as to call him a "Janus, who has two faces: one the anti-Giscard candidate, the other turned against François Mitterrand." Pundits insist that Marchais actually has a carefully masked preference for the re-election of the conservative Giscard over the leftist Mitterrand. His main reason, they reckon: the fear that a Socialist victory would severely undercut the influence of the smaller Communist Party and relegate it to a helpless neither...
Marchais, in fact, seems to go out of his way to frighten middle-of-the-road voters out of supporting Mitterrand. One of his latest ploys, incredibly enough, has been to raise the specter of Communist ministers in a Mitterrand government. Mitterrand has been forced to insist that he would never accept them-and in so doing has given Marchais an excuse, should he choose, to ask his membership to boycott the second round rather than vote for Mitterrand...