Word: schreibers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...centrists and liberal Gaullists. His efforts were rewarded when Premier Jacques Chirac won an overwhelming parliamentary vote of confidence for the new government. Last week, however, Giscard and Chirac discovered that there are pitfalls in moving ahead with too much haste. Only twelve days after appointing Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, 50, as Minister of Reform, they were forced to fire the millionaire publisher of L'Express and intellectual gadfly. The reason: J.J.-S.S.'s public criticism of the government's intention to continue nuclear tests in the Pacific...
...Servan-Schreiber's brief tenure in the Cabinet came to an abrupt end after he read a wire-service report that France's nuclear-testing program in the Pacific Ocean would be resumed this month. Servan-Schreiber, a longtime opponent of testing, warned Chirac by telephone that he would speak out against the decision the next day. Chirac asked the volatile J.J.-S.S. to be "discreet," which was a bit like asking Martha Mitchell to abstain from telephone calls...
...press conference, Servan-Schreiber said that the Cabinet had never discussed the tests: "The military faced the Cabinet with a fait accompli." That proved to be his undoing. Hours later, Defense Minister Jacques Soufflet, a hard-line Gaullist and a chief proponent of testing, issued an ultimatum: Giscard and Chirac would have to choose between him and Servan-Schreiber. They promptly dismissed Servan-Schreiber, the Premier explaining tersely, "The views he expressed this morning are incompatible with the basic principles of our policy...
...Servan-Schreiber's ouster did not surprise many Frenchmen. Although sometimes unpredictable on other issues, he has been vehemently consistent in opposing not only nuclear testing but France's expensive force de frappe as well. Last year he went to the Pacific to demonstrate against France's atmospheric testing of nuclear devices. He has also backed the cause of Canadian Yachtsman David McTaggart, who sailed his 38-ft. ketch into the nuclear test area in 1972 and 1973 to protest the explosions. McTaggart is suing the French government for allegedly boarding his boat illegally and beating...
Future Tests. If Servan-Schreiber's ideas were clear, so were Giscard's. During his campaign for the presidency he had repeatedly stressed his support for the force de frappe without ever hinting that he would stop this year's atmospheric tests, although he has since said that future tests will probably be underground. Thus it appeared from the beginning that Giscard and Servan-Schreiber were on a collision course with political reality. It seemed inexplicable that Giscard had not obtained from Servan-Schreiber a pledge to voice opposition only within the Cabinet...