France's Politics of Disunity

...The consensus is that PCF leaders, or at least the hardliners in the driver's seat, were taken aback by the Socialists emerging as the country's leading party and thus promising to be the controlling force in any Union of the Left government...

...Consequently, it is theoretically possible for the parties of the Left to win a majority of the seats in the National Assembly despite their campaigning separately-if, that is, they agree to systematically withdraw candidates who are outpolled by rival Leftists in the first round, and if their respective followers vote as instructed...

...Norman Jacobs, long associated with the NL, recently retired as editor of the Foreign Policy Association...

...As a result, the Mayor has begun to change his tactics and modulate his message...

...Once the PS showed its strength, the belief is, the PCF decided to go its own way and preach a more extreme line, in an effort to weaken its rival and regain its former dominance on the Left...

...Because of the hostility in the Leftist camp, some political scientists have calculated that the PS could poll well over 30 per cent of the first-round votes (as compared to the 20 per cent it scored in the 1973 legislative elections) and still end up with fewer seats than it won four years ago, when the parties of the Left supported each other in the second round...

...It also will pose further difficulties for Chirac, who is notoriously at odds with Giscard...

...For the swing voters who were expected to provide the margin of victory for the Union of the Left-estimated at some 5 per cent of the electorate-would undoubtedly have serious reservations about the wisdom of giving control of the French government to an alignment whose members have devoted so much of their preelectoral energy to quarreling among themselves...

...Communist chief Georges Marchais was the first to lash out at the Socialists...

...The Socialists' massive counter-campaign of justification and exhortation is somewhat more subtle...

...But such an "opening to the Left" obviously would have to appeal to the Socialists as well, and Mitterrand has firmly indicated that it does not...

...And the PCF offensive involves more than invective: The party has just launched a mammoth, $2-million campaign aimed at mobilizing its 600,000 members to carry the Communist message to France...

...The dark horse in French politics today is Raymond Barre...

...While French citizens do not relish austerity, even some of the Prime Minister's strongest critics can't help admiring the courage, tenacity and integrity he has shown in administering the country's affairs...

...Not surprisingly, the PCF shot back that given the PS's history, it was more likely to embrace the Right...

...The outcome of the remaining contests, where the coalition parties will be competing against each other as well, will decide whether the Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) will remain the "majority of the majority," or whether President Valery Giscard d'Estaing's Republican party (PR) will emerge as the leading force of the Center-Right...

...The Left quickly sent up a barrage of criticism, and the support from his own party was at times barely lukewarm...

...This, the Communists claimed, doomed to failure the Left's chances of effectively realizing the Common Program that was in the process of being updated...

...Against a united Left, Chirac had planned to exploit to the hilt the danger of a Communist takeover of France, presenting himself and his Gaullist party as the only tested bulwarks strong enough to save France from totalitarianism...

...Francois Mitterrand is calling on his party to roll up 7 million votes in the first round of the March legislative elections (2 million more than it won in 1973...

...On the contrary, he has put forth the "hypothesis" that it is the Communists who may be seeking an "historic compromise," a la the one the Italian Communists have sought to reach with the Christian Democrats in Rome...

...With the Left's chances of victory sharply diminished by its own division, Chirac's task has become more difficult and more complex...

...Ironically, the troubles of the Left have proved to be a mixed blessing for Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac and his RPR...

...In addition, he has pledged that the PS will refrain from initiating attacks against the Communists and concentrate instead on battling the main enemy, the Right...

...The Prime Minister is seeking a seat in the National Assembly, too, and his entry into the political arena will give a boost to the PR and to the smaller Center parties that have been urging him to play a more active role as a leader of the country's moderates...

...Then Roland Leroy, Number Two in the PCF hierarchy and reputed leader of the hardline faction, asserted that the Right was counting on the PS to serve as a barrier to any program for genuine reform...

...As the poll indicates, the fortunes of Giscard, Barre and the PR are decidedly on the upswing...

...As I reported in these pages ("A New Political Season in France," NL, October 10), the French Communist party's (PCF) announced reason for dissolving the Union of the Left it had formed with the Socialists (PS) and Left Radicals was its partners' refusal to go far enough in nationalizing French industry...

...Moreover, the Socialist concessions would have given the Left unprecedented control over the French economy and, according to some experts, would have ultimately spelled the end of capitalism in France...

...Mitterrand continues to voice the hope that the Union of the Left will reunite, however...

...and office-seekers can, where they choose, pull out of the race after the initial balloting in favor of someone else designated by them who is staying in...

...In the immediate aftermath of the Left's sweeping municipal election victory last March, the President's stock declined to its lowest point since his inauguration in 1974...

...The PCF has taken to the grass roots to explain that it is the Socialists who have deserted the cause, the PS has been responding with vigor, and the tension between the two seems likely to go on rising...

...Many former admirers wrote him off as a weak and ineffectual dilettante...

...Next, the party's top economic expert, Philippe Herzog, charged that in rejecting the Communists' budget, the Socialists were seeking to strengthen the role of high finance in the French economy...

...and that it will withdraw its candidates from the runoff round of the legislative elections wherever Communists come in ahead in the first round...

...A respected professor of economics with no political experience when Giscard named him prime minister 14 months ago, Barre instituted a tough anti-inflationary program that seemed designed to win enemies and alienate voters...

...But Giscard kept his cool, steadfastly emphasized his presidential role as guarantor of French unity and liberties, and confidently predicted the Left would lose the legislative elections...

...Leftist disunity has also, of course, drastically altered the outlook and prospects of its opponents...

...Some of this popularity has rubbed off on the party created under his inspiration-and the PR is strategically well-placed to appeal in the coming elections beyond its original constituency, to Socialists, Gaullists and all who are ready to support a moderate, reformist program...

...He must worry about the growing strength of the PR-which, according to a recent poll, has edged out the Gaullists in the public's favor...

...that would easily enable it to maintain its preeminence in the French political hierarchy...

...He is wooing Centrists, Socialists and others disenchanted with the squabbling Leftists by trying to shed the Right-wing label frequently affixed to the RPR-going so far as to suggest that Prime Minister Raymond Barre's policies are too conservative and his efforts to combat unemployment inadequate...

...Barre has until now remained aloof from party politics...

...The events of the last two months make predictions hazardous, particularly since the French Communists' motives are still unclear...

...Under the two-tier system governing these races, successful candidates need a majority in the first round but only a plurality in the second...

...Even if the Left were to reach an accord before the balloting, its chances would have to be reckoned as doubtful...

...The party has thrived on the Left-Right polarization that has marked the last two decades of French politics...

...Whatever the true explanation of the Communists' behavior, the French Left is suffering from a case of disunity whose prognosis is decidedly gloomy...

...Nonetheless, at the moment one would have to say that the prospects for ending or attenuating the Left-Right division that has tormented this country for so much of its history remain poor...

...It is more likely that many Socialists will ignore party orders and either refuse to cast their second-round ballots for Communists or vote for the representatives of the Center-Right parties...

...But the fact is that when negotiations broke off on September 21, the parties had reached a wide measure of agreement...

...In the last few months, though, his program has begun to produce results: The French franc is stable, the foreign trade deficit is diminishing (in September there was a surplus), unemployment may actually have started to decline, and the stubborn inflation rate is slowly edging downward...

...Another recent poll has indicated that by a wide margin he is the most favorably perceived of France's leading political personalities...

...The Communists, for their part, will keep their men in second-round races they have no hope of winning, or will scratch them and abstain from the voting...

...Mitterrand's promises notwithstanding, there is little chance of this happening: The bitterness engendered by the Socialist-Communist split is simply too great...

...The last is of particular significance...

...he accused them of abandoning the Common Program and moving toward the Right...

...The Communists' September action provided Giscard with the aura of a seer...

...But in January he intends to present a program of goals that has the President's backing, and to selectively endorse legislative candidates who support it...

...For should the upcoming legislative elections confirm the Socialists' position as the nation's leading party, and should the PR and the smaller moderate parties emerge as the new Center-Right majority, the combined strength of the two factions in the Assembly might enable Giscard to form a Socialist-Centrist government...

...The majority Center-Right coalition recently settled its final major internal problem, agreeing on the assignment of those election districts where, to maximize its chances of victory, it will designate just one first-round candidate to run against the Left's nominees...

...Many workers-including those with Communist sympathies-would almost certainly have been willing to settle for the Socialists' "half loaf...

...Most observers, therefore, have looked for other explanations of why the Communists disrupted the Leftist alliance, dashing the hopes of millions of its supporters for a radical change in France following the victory that had been anticipated in the elections scheduled to be held March 12 and 19...

...that it will continue to campaign for the Common Program...

...Most important, it could advance the French President's long-held ambition to unite his countrymen across the chasm of class differences dividing workers and bourgeoisie...