France Prepares to Vote
HERALD, GEORGE W.
OLD RIVALRIES IN NEW COALITIONS France Prepares to Vote By George Herald Paris Addressing his fellow Gaullists at the Palais des Sports in Paris the other night, Andre Malraux said: "The Left is...
...But in the eyes of most Gaullists, that would really be a solution of despair...
...The Communists and Mitterand have failed to draft any common program of the Left, since their views on the Atlantic Alliance and the European Common Market remain incompatible...
...even if they put their foes in the minority, could form a workable government coalition...
...They are afraid of inflation and unemployment...
...The farmers complain that their per capita income remains far below that of the city-dwellers...
...OLD RIVALRIES IN NEW COALITIONS France Prepares to Vote By George Herald Paris Addressing his fellow Gaullists at the Palais des Sports in Paris the other night, Andre Malraux said: "The Left is no longer to the left, the Right is no longer to the right, and the Center is no longer in the middle...
...The Communists are not even on speaking terms with Lecanuet, whom they consider a "mouthpiece of pro-American reaction...
...This has led to some vigorous horse-trading between Waldeck Rochet, the Communist party chief...
...Much will depend upon the 25 per cent who are as yet undecided...
...The Gaullists are banking on the average voter's desire for continued stability, as long as it can last...
...Failing this, de Gaulle has the right to dissolve the Assembly and call for new elections...
...In the eyes of Paris political experts, the following avenues will remain open to General de Gaulle: 1. He can try and reach a compromise with Lecanuet...
...Many in that group belong to the two million youngsters who are going to the ballot box for the first time...
...In many districts, the Communists have promised to withdraw in favor of a Socialist or Radical rather than let a Gaullist come out on top, and vice versa...
...Jean Lecanuet, leader of the Catholic-oriented Democratic Center...
...3. Should new elections confirm the voters' original verdict, de Gaulle can either resign and make possible the election of a new President, or stay on and watch many of his policies being scrapped...
...According to the latest polls of the French Institute of Public Opinion, nothing appears less certain...
...and Jean Tixier-Vignancour, champion of the Right-wing Republicans for Freedom...
...They say he would never attempt to maintain himself in power against the will of the people...
...The Gaullists are trying to turn this fact to their advantage by affirming that their economic and foreign policies form a whole, that they have led the country to an unprecedented prosperity, and that this Golden Age would end the moment the people returned to the party system of the Fourth Republic...
...Under these conditions, a cynical Paris commentator remarked: "The choice for the French in the March elections will be between chaos now or chaos later...
...As for Mitterand and Lecanuet, they might conceivably find a formula of cooperation similar to that between West Germany's Kurt Kiesinger and Willy Brandt in Bonn...
...they do not agree on much else...
...The psu is a non-Communist group to the left of the Socialists...
...If the seats gained by Lecanuet can make up for Gaullist losses, this would seem to be the easiest way out of the crisis...
...They therefore feel that they should win in March by roughly the same majority they enjoyed when the General's own mandate was renewed by the people in January 1965...
...Workers and employes feel underpaid and claim that the Little Man carries most of the tax burden by way of indirect taxes...
...While most observers believe that the General would rather retire than preside over the liquidation of his work, there is one other school of thought that must at least be mentioned...
...Few of them will win a seat in the first round on March 5; in order to do so, a man must obtain more votes than all his rivals combined...
...We are terribly short of hospitals and educational facilities...
...Right remains right and Left remains left in France, as well as inside the Gaullist establishment...
...Allegiance to their revered leader has so far been stronger than their disagreements, though, and has enabled de Gaulle to conduct a more or less coherent policy...
...What he wanted to say was that General de Gaulle and his followers, by borrowing the best points from the programs of all the other parties, have upset traditional notions of Right and Left and found a new way of running the country...
...And the General has been somewhat embarrassed by Jacques Soustelle's competing for the seat from Lyons...
...His hostility toward General de Gaulle actually is so great that he favors Mitterand over Lecanuet because the latter, while politically closer to him, might waver in his anti-Gaullism after the battle...
...He also has this right in the event that a new government is constituted on a platform that openly clashes with the ideas of the head of state...
...Center and Right Opposition??5-20 per cent...
...Fears that he might invoke Article 16 of the Constitution, which allows him to govern by decree in case of a "national emergency," are dismissed by his spokesmen as groundless...
...Watching the current election campaign, a superficial observer might indeed gain the impression that the old concepts of Right and Left are dead...
...Such an arrangement, they maintain, would leave de Gaulle's foreign policies intact while Mendes-France concentrates his efforts on large-scale social reforms, to which the General has never been personally opposed...
...No other government, whatever its composition, could or would care to change the anti-American flavor of de Gaulle's foreign policy, which is immensely popular in France...
...The polls show the following division among citizens who have already made up their minds (75 per cent): Gaullists??38-40 per cent...
...Francois Mitterand, head of the non-Communist Federation of the Left...
...But many pillars of the regime not only object to Lecanuet as a fervent "European," they have a personal dislike for the man...
...These three sub-divisions have widely different views on many important issues...
...What would actually happen if the Gaullists lost their majority in the new Assembly...
...There are going to be 2,244 candidates competing for 482 seats...
...Thus it is hard to see how the anti-Gaullists...
...He was not describing some new painting by Picasso...
...Charles Hernu, one of Mitterand's top aides, declared: "The regime believes it has most of those young people on its side, but I don't quite see that...
...He was talking about the political picture in France on the eve of the general elections in the National Assembly, which will be held on March 5 and 12...
...No one, they argue, can take away from de Gaulle that he has settled the Algerian war, converted the French Empire into a model of voluntary cooperation, restored the value of the franc and enhanced France's global prestige...
...Since Soustelle has been exiled from France for the past six years under threat of imprisonment, the former Governor-General of Algeria announced his candidacy in a tape-recorded statement minutes before the deadline for entry into the March elections...
...There is a vague feeling of discontent sweeping the provinces...
...But they do not have the slightest chance of obtaining a majority by themselves, or even with the support of M. Tixier-Vignancour...
...These results indicate that the Gaullists, while remaining the biggest political formation, may not obtain a clear majority of seats in the next Assembly...
...They freely admit that their regime has its faults, but they also point to its undeniable achievements...
...Thus some political observers here do not consider it entirely impossible that the General, if need be, might appoint Mendes-France head of a government backed by a large majority reaching from some Communists to some Gaullists...
...The veteran statesman will present himself as the candidate of the Parti Socialiste Unifw in Grenoble...
...They feel that the enormous funds spent on atomic armaments in France could be better used for housing, roads and social services...
...Yet many of his followers have subordinated their personal opinions only with deep misgivings??notably concerning America, China, nato and the Common Market??and after he disappears the Gaullists are bound to break up into factions again...
...There is consensus among all participants that this election will be won or lost over domestic social and economic issues, not over questions of foreign policy...
...The opposition charges that de Gaulle's contempt for all parties but his own tends to transform the Fifth Republic into a one-party state...
...They remain confident that, in the end, the French will not want to threaten the country's stability, and that a handsome election victory will allow the Gaullist experiment to be carried to its natural conclusion...
...De Gaulle's opponents on all sides may be united in their desire to get rid of him...
...The Movement for the Fifth Republic contains a left-wing group led by Louis Vallon, a center group headed by Premier Georges Pompidou, and a conservative wing directed by former Minister of Finance Valery Giscard d'Estaing...
...Even Tixier-Vignancour has pledged his followers to vote for the Mitterand exponent wherever necessary to defeat a Gaullist...
...In his statement, Soustelle held up his own case as an example of de Gaulle's attempt to suppress all opposition voices in French politics...
...People are getting tired of this personal regime...
...In a showdown, they will cast their ballots for a Gaullist against his Lecanuet rival...
...2. If that doesn't work, the General will be duty-bound to try to form a government in the image of the new majority...
...It revolves around the figure of former Premier Pierre Mendes-France...
...In other districts, Lecanuet will remove his candidates so that a Mitterand man can win, and vice versa...
...Left Opposition??40-44 per cent...
...In both camps, runners-up are expected to desist in favor of the candidate best placed to win the second round...
...As matters stand now, no such government will be able to survive in Parliament unless supported by a broad front reaching from the Communists to Lecanuet...
...All that commotion, however, is deceptive...
...De Gaulle is known to hold Mendes-France in very high esteem, and there have been signs during the current campaign that the regime, which shows no indulgence toward Socialist leader Guy Mollet and Mitterand, is treating the Vietnam peacemaker of 1954 with velvet gloves...
...Thus most districts will see a second round on March 12 that can simply be won by the contender with the largest number of votes...
...Would chaos in fact be unavoidable...
...In a frankly partisan television speech on February 9, the Chief of State himself literally adjured the French to vote in favor of his supporters and warned them of the direst calamities if they did not...
...George W. Herald, a previous contributor here, is a veteran foreign correspondent based in Paris...
Vol. 50 • February 1967 • No. 5
