Word: poher
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...France prepared to elect its first new President in more than a decade, the two surviving candidates to succeed Charles de Gaulle virtually reversed their earlier campaign strategies and styles. Interim President Alain Poher had conducted an aloof, deliberately understated campaign during the first round of voting, basking in the premature warmth of his discovery by the country. Last week Poher was scrambling frantically across France and, feeling a chill, shouting to audiences with such ferocity that he lost most of his voice. Ex-Premier Georges Pompidou, by contrast, was far more relaxed in Round 2, affecting the role...
...face of what political observers labeled "Pompidoulist" strength, however, Poher showed no inclination to retire from French politics as quickly -or as quietly-as he entered. "I became a candidate in the first place to avoid a confrontation between Gaullism and Communism, and I succeeded because I came in second," he explained. What is more, he intended to step up the fight, abandoning his earlier tactic of campaigning only by TV and press conference in favor of a jetliner tour of twelve cities in five days. His determination remained in spite of editorials in the prestigious Le Monde...
...Poher from Nowhere. The mathematics were all too clear. Pompidou captured 44.47% of the total vote in last week's Round 1 of balloting, just a shade behind De Gaulle's showing in his first-round presidential campaign in 1965, and he ran first in all but one of France's 95 metropolitan departments. Poher's 23.21% of the tally made him a distant second with barely half as many votes. Communist Jacques Duclos, who got only one-third as many votes as Poher in early campaign polls, finished up just two points behind...
Late polls forecast a slipping trend for Poher (the last ceded him 25%, v. 37% at his high point), but they certainly did not suggest that he would almost drop to third. They did indicate that France was taking a careful second look at the mild-mannered grandfather who appeared out of nowhere to unseat De Gaulle-and on reappraisal was having some doubts. What appeared at first as Poher's quiet strengths later turned out to be exasperating quirks. The man who refused to grandstand from his temporary quarters at the Elysée also refused...
Personal Triumph. Pompidou, meanwhile, seemed to be everywhere, and he neither used notes nor hesitated to draft indictments. He suggested that Poher, if elected, would have to battle an overwhelmingly Gaullist Assembly. By holding up this specter, Pompidou successfully managed to appeal to what Journalist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber calls France's "overriding concern" with stability. Not the least of his weapons was to mention the virtual necessity of Poher's calling new parliamentary elections should he win: having voted eleven times since De Gaulle came to power, France is tired of elections...