Word: mitterrand
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...revolving door last week as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's political opponents swiftly responded to his post-election appeal for "relaxation," "coexistence" and "reasonable cohabitation" among all parties. The first major leftist figure to enter the once impenetrable palace was Socialist Leader François Mitterrand, whose hopes of governing France had suffered a shattering defeat. Mitterrand was ceremoniously greeted by Elysée Secretary General Jean François-Poncet, who ushered the grim leftist into the sumptuous Golden Salon that once served as Charles de Gaulle's private office. There, Mitterrand shook hands...
...scarcely be considered an earthshaking event. In the U.S., of course, Republican leaders regularly drop by the White House to argue with Jimmy Carter. But in France, the opposition has traditionally been treated with about as much regard as a gallon jug of Manischewitz wine. Indeed, the meeting between Mitterrand and Giscard was the first encounter between a key opposition leader and an elected President since the founding of the Fifth Republic...
Both Giscard and Mitterrand were aware that the popular vote (48.4% for the left, 51.6% for the center-right) signaled widespread unease in the nation. Accordingly, Giscard saw the necessity of inviting the leftist opinions-even though, as it turned out, those opinions were boringly familiar. Essentially, Mitterrand was seeking to persuade Giscard to give France's 13.9 million leftist voters a greater voice in political life. He asked for equal time for opposition leaders on government-controlled television and radio. He also pressed for their increased participation in the National Assembly. Finally, he reiterated his party...
...Socialists and the small Left Radicals. The Common Program of 1972 marked the first success of this strategy. But it was signed, not by the old and decrepit Socialist Party of the Fourth Republic, but by a vigorous new Socialist Party taken over by a cunning politician, Francois Mitterrand...
...victory. They could not bring themselves to support a coalition of bitter enemies engaged in fierce mutual recriminations and incapable of agreeing on a platform. Even though the French youth from 18 to 21 voted for the first time, the Left did a shade worse than in the Mitterrand-Giscard duel of 1974. And so, the C.P. is back in the political ghetto...