Word: mitterrand
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...European countries, state-owned TV has traditionally been stodgy and unimaginative, at least by U.S. standards. The three channels run by the French government offer a lineup of news, highbrow talk shows and inexpensively produced entertainment, along with occasional U.S. imports like Dallas and Dynasty. When Socialist President Francois Mitterrand came to power in 1981, however, he pledged to make the airwaves more independent. The upshot was a proliferation of privately owned FM radio stations and, in 1984, a new national pay-TV channel, Canal Plus...
Last November the government awarded the franchise for a fifth channel to a group headed by Berlusconi and two French businessmen with ties to President Mitterrand. Opposition leaders charged that the new channel would have a pro- Socialist bias and that it was being rushed on the air to beat the March 16 legislative elections, which the Socialists are in danger of losing. Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, a leading Mitterrand foe, even tried to thwart the channel's start-up by closing access to the top of the Eiffel Tower, where technicians were about to install an antenna. Government officials...
...ruling Socialists also pulled out their biggest gun. In a televised, prime-time appearance, President Francois Mitterrand appealed for support for his party in order to avert "a kind of disorder, a very great difficulty...
...alerts the embassies. Bodyguards watch over him. The maid at London's posh Claridge's covers the floor with towels because Kissinger, she says, does not like to walk barefoot on hotel carpets. Arriving in Paris, Kissinger is invited to the Elysee Palace for a chat with President Francois Mitterrand; in Peking, Deng Xiaoping suggests a talk over tea. Back in New York City, the famous face and graveled accent cause a stir even at the Four Seasons, Manhattan's power-lunch emporium...
Foremost among the hoped-for benefits would be the creation of up to 60,000 jobs during the estimated six-year construction period. With unemployment running at 9.8% in France and an even higher 13.2% in Britain, the project has economic and political appeal for both leaders. Moreover, Mitterrand hopes that the venture will burnish his image before legislative elections on March 16, which his Socialist Party is currently expected to lose...