Word: mitterrand
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...post office bomb earlier in the week exploded only 165 yards from an office used by French Premier and Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, killing a female postal worker. Chirac rushed to the scene from a meeting and later declared war on "this leprosy of modern times." President Francois Mitterrand called for "combat without mercy" against the terrorist menace...
...later, Chirac appeared on television to announce that the decree would be submitted instead as a separate parliamentary bill to the National Assembly, where his coalition holds a three-vote majority. Sitting beneath a Gobelin tapestry in his office in the Hotel de Matignon, Chirac politely but pointedly called Mitterrand's concerns "without any foundation" and termed the President's refusal to sign "without precedent...
Despite a long-standing political rivalry between Mitterrand and Chirac, cohabitation has been more amiable than many French pundits had predicted. With last week's clash, however, both leaders signaled that there are limits to their reservoirs of amiability. "Cohabitation is a tandem bicycle," said Assembly Deputy Philippe Mestre in a clash of metaphors, "on which the two cyclists pedal in opposite directions...
Chirac supports the new regulations; Mitterrand does not. In the duel on this issue, Mitterrand's chosen weapon last week was the guest list for his annual Bastille Day garden party, held in the Elysee Palace. Mitterrand invited two young Algerian immigrants living in Lyons who had conducted a hunger strike to protest the hard line on law and order. Interior Minister Charles Pasqua was so angered at the President's gesture of support for those protesting the government's legislation that he refused to attend the affair...
Polls have shown that a strong majority of the French support cohabitation, and last week's confrontation probably does not mean that Mitterrand and Chirac will totally go their separate ways. As Finance Minister Edouard Balladur recently remarked, "In a western movie, the first one to draw his gun usually wins. In cohabitation, it is the opposite: the first one to draw is dead." Apparently, Mitterrand and Chirac still want to avoid that eventuality...