Word: reform
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Open Style. While the vote was a near standoff, it did bring Giscard to power with a clear mandate for social and economic reform. In a conciliatory, low-keyed victory speech that seemed aimed as much to Mitterrand's crestfallen leftist backers as to his own supporters on the right, Giscard said: "I have understood in this campaign that you wanted change. You will not be disappointed." Giscard also promised French voters that they would be "surprised at the breadth and rapidity" of the changes he would bring to France after 16 years of conservative Gaullist rule. Those changes...
...Overdue Reform. The "two Frances"-one privileged, modern and optimistic, the other poor, neglected and burdened with grievances-that were etched so sharply in the election results are a product of the unevenness of the remarkable prosperity of the Gaullist years. The robust French economy has almost tripled in size since 1962, and some analysts predict that it will pass West Germany's by 1980 or 1981. Yet France's rising gross national product has mainly benefited the slowly expanding middle class and the country's pampered farmers, who voted overwhelmingly for Giscard. Prosperity has largely bypassed...
...overpopulated"; 28% have no hot water, 55% are without baths and 77% lack telephones. Because French governments have devoted less of the country's gross national product to social services than any other major Common Market country, France is plagued with inadequate hospitals, schools and roads. Meanwhile, tax reform is long overdue: a typical tax bill for a French factory employee who earned $10,000 last year would be $756, compared with $291 for a physician or other professional person, $260 for a shopkeeper and nothing at all for a farmer. Thus the French worker has come to expect...
...only 55 seats in the hands of his own Independent Republican Party, Giscard needs the support of the Gaullists (183 seats) and some Centrist deputies if he is to govern effectively. The Gaullists have never cared for Giscard, who broke with the party in the 1969 referendum on regional reform that led to De Gaulle's fall from power; they say that they will give his regime varying "degrees of support," depending on the issues...
...IMAGE AS AN ALOOF ARISTOCRAT. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a patrician, and Kennedy was a multimillionaire. In the U.S., they represented an idea of progress, and both-Roosevelt especially-led a major reform movement, so one should not be taken in by labels that politicians give one another. Anyone who follows my campaign will see that I have no difficulty in obtaining popular support. In France, people know very well whether you are self-seeking or not, and as they have been observing me for some time, they know that this is not the case with...