French Socialists in Retreat

...Instead, massive demonstrations by partisans of parochial education against a bill giving the government additional powers to oversee state-subsidized private schools forced Mitterrand's hand...

...Mitterrand's pledge to cut the government's total intake by about 1 per cent has inspired a 1985 budget that continues to limit spending and reduces taxes, partially reversing previous "soak-the-rich" measures and generally benefiting the middle class...

...Raymond Barre, the most popular Opposition leader despite his lack of a strong party base, has opposed it: He would rather force Mitterrand to resign in the wake of a Conservative victory, paving the way for a presidential contest in which he would have an advantage over Chirac...

...Their supporters will have little choice except to help the Socialists in most 1986 runoff contests, whatever the official PCF line may be...

...Laurent Fabius, the 37-year-old Prime Minister named last July, has a better personal image than his predecessor, Pierre Mauroy, but his technocratic, nonpartisan style has to date had no effect on the Socialists' standing in the polls...

...The nagging worry is that the recent boom in exports—due, in part, to the overvalued U.S...

...Party leader Lionel Jospin, observing that defeat is a natural aspect of the democratic process, has gone so far as to warn his troops to prepare for a return to opposition...

...To win back middle-class voters, he wants to take credit for economic and tax policies that clearly favor them, and to blunt the Opposition's new offensive on crime and security...

...Actually, the Communists may be more useful to Mitterrand outside the government than within it...

...its foreign-policy difficulties have at times made it seem ineffectual, if not absurd...

...It had been expected that there would be administration changes in late 1984 or early 1985, once the most painful phase of Mauroy's austerity ran its course...

...The Communist Party (PCF) used the occasion of the new Prime Minister's appointment to leave the governing coalition...

...tance, not salvation...

...Paris can only provide assisNorman Bowen teaches political science at the American College in Paris...

...President Francois Mitterrand's popularity has dropped to an all-time Fifth Republic low...

...and frequent shifts in the tenor of its appeals to the public have created an impression of indecision and opportunism...

...The new sense of doom emerged on the Left—to the accompaniment of outright gloating elsewhere along the political spectrum—after it became clear that the summer ministerial shakeup failed to stem a strong tide of discontent...

...Jacques Chirac—head of the Opposition group that has the best prospect of winning in 1986, the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic—has accepted cohabitation in principle...

...But signs do indicate that labor conflicts are becoming more numerous, bitter and fundamental...

...Of course, budgetary restraints and ballooning foreign-debt payments will render hazardous any effort to accelerate expansion...

...LOOKING TO 1986 French Socialists in Repeat BY NORMAN BOWEN Paris Looking across 1985 to the legislative elections that must be held by June 1986, France's government now sees itself suffering defeat...

...More crucially, it remains to be seen whether French manufacturers will find it easier to take advantage of next year's projected 1.4 per cent increase in purchasing power than they did of a similar situation back in 198182...

...Hence the new radical appeals, echoing the 1981 campaign—and the happy memories it brings back...

...Still, their departure opened the way to more plausible attempts by Mitterrand and Fabius to achieve decrispation, the lessening of tensions between the Socialists and the conservative Opposition...

...The French public remains very legit-imiste on this issue: A firm majority wants the President to serve out his full seven-year term no matter what happens...

...Appointing Fabius was viewed as a stroke of genius and a calculated gamble...

...but growth will surely be needed to repay the debt and to combat unemployment...

...If the dollar begins to fall —and the 1985 budget projections are counting on that—the investment climate here will be more attractive...

...But the Fabius approach simultaneously includes an overture to the Left: the state is expected to increase substantially its investment in healthy industrial sectors, both public and private...

...Emboldened by public opinion polls that show 58 per cent of the electorate leaning toward the Opposition in 1986, conservatives have decided the government has nothing to offer...

...In addition, his direct personal style could prove more convincing to the electorate than Mauroy's floridness...

...So far, the unions have been unable to mobilize even the workers: An autumn strike at Renault, the nationalized automaker, failed to take hold, and a one-day national walkout by government functionaries was a disappointment...

...Austerity had long troubled PCF leaders, but they did not want to be accused of instigating a political divorce, so Fabius was a made-to-order pretext...

...Speaking "common sense" in a non-ideological way, Fabius tried to project values that would appeal to a majority of the French people...

...These twists and turns do not quite exhaust the Socialists' room for maneuver as they prepare to face 1986...

...This November a PCF mayor demanded the demolition of an overcrowded housing center for immigrants on grounds of health...

...But it was tactical as well...

...His message, therefore, was simple: The profit motive and hard work are the keys to recovery...

...on the other, he was a suitable choice for mounting a new strategy of openness and dialogue with the moderate Right...

...The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has warned France that it must do something about chronic long-term joblessness, especially among youth...

...In one recent incident, a company guard shot and killed a unionist, and Creusot-Loire employees successfully blocked the sale and reorganization of their firm...

...One possible strategy—in spite of all their promises to pursue a strict economic policy regardless of the political consequences—might involve an attempt to "prime the pump" more vigorously...

...currency—will burst if the American recovery falters...

...He further charged that men and women from abroad have been shunted into a limited number of working-class municipalities...

...Should Opposition leaders announce beforehand their unwillingness to act as his prime minister...

...Fabius has become much more aggressive, too, responding in kind to unscrupulous attacks on law-and-order issues...

...In this sense his gesture to the Oppositionists was undoubtedly sincere...

...The President's political instincts were formed by participation in the multiparty governments of the Fourth Republic, and his career has been filled with pragmatic efforts to forge victorious coalitions...

...In a recent interview, Mitterrand himself mused that at least the Right would have difficulty undoing the social and economic gains achieved since May 1981, when he was elected...

...The government has more leeway in monetary policy because the conservative head of the Banque de France has just been replaced...

...Be that as it may, unemployment, growing steadily, is now 500,000 above the 2 million mark the Socialists vowed never to exceed...

...These gestures have not been dramatic enough to change the minds of vehement anti-Leftists, however...

...Its rejection has forced him to turn his attention to closer quarters...

...Meanwhile, the bureaucracy will be forced to accept raises at or below the rate of inflation, and wage hikes are to remain moderate in the private sector...

...Mitterrand's overtures to the Right have provoked charges of opportunism...

...There was no question of altering the current economic policy to any great extent...

...Indeed, the Prime Minister's thinly disguised goal is to permanently decouple such increases from the vicissitudes of price levels, basing all salary negotiations on the condition of individual companies and the productivity of individual employees...

...Mauroy, smarting under the rebuke, backed his Education Minister by resigning abruptly...

...At a November Cabinet meeting Mitterrand called on his ministers to defend the traditional values of the Left, and he is again blaming French industry for its failure to adapt to changing international conditions...

...He also is too young to have participated in earlier, divisive party infighting...

...In opposition, moreover, the PCF itself will be better placed to recapture the protest vote, which in this year's elections to the European Parliament went largely to the far Right...

...These steps were considered necessary to offset the substantial gains lower-paid workers have won in the last three and a half years...

...The implication was clear: Resentment toward newcomers hurts the Left because the communes that it dominates are more likely to accept them than Right-leaning localities...

...sacrifices will be required of everyone...

...Mitterrand would probably have preferred to keep the Communists in the coalition, and Fabius offered them minor positions as bait...

...Luckily, France is not overly dependent on exports to the United States...

...Their performance in 1985 will be an important test of Mitterrand's whole economic restructuring...

...Most saw decrispation as a trap, though, and after a few tango-like hesitation steps the Right refused to dance...

...Thus France is girding for a long and bruising campaign season...

...Nonetheless, they have tended to abstain in the National Assembly rather than side with the Right—a gesture that makes little difference, since the Socialists hold an absolute majority...

...They will give household consumption a modest shot in the arm and, should the "Fabius effect" ultimately take hold, could lure disillusioned managers and professionals back to the Socialists...

...Under the Fifth Republic's Constitution, the next presidential race will not be held until 1988, two years after the return of a new National Assembly...

...Socialist Party cadres, in particular, need a strong boost in morale...

...The Right feels so sure of victory in 1986 that the hottest debate of the fall dealt with cohabitation...

...After hesitating a bit, the Communists clearly placed themselves in opposition and started to coopt the Left's growing disillusionment with Mitterrand...

...Moderate Rightists were asked to participate in the government, and as the President traveled the provinces sending them feelers and calling for unity, some of their leaders responded favorably...

...Currency reserves have been restored...

...His actual program, though, is more subtle...

...Hoping to defuse an issue that had succeeded in unifying the Opposition and threatened to develop into a crisis, the President ordered the measure withdrawn...

...Cantonal elections in early 1985 will provide a preview of 1986, much as Mitterrand's divergent messages to the French public do...

...For ample reasons: Its austerity package has hit millions of Frenchmen in the pocketbook...

...Another initiative favors people buying second homes for the purpose of generating rental income...

...Left-wingers, nurtured on the evils of monopoly capitalism and the injustices of surplus value, blanched at the technocrat-pedagogue' s unoriginal and unwelcome formulas...

...Cooperation would only implicate them in the hardships produced by Mitterrand's austerity program and enhance his standing as the country's legitimate leader...

...Formerly Minister of Industry, he is a Mitterrand loyalist who has no independent base and owes his rise wholly to the chief...

...But the moderate vote will not help unless voters on the Left return to the fold...

...Thus on the one hand, he represented no threat to the present leadership...

...The President has two quite different sets of political priorities...

...Cautiously, Fabius and Company have begun to reduce restrictions on credit and to free prices in markets that are highly competitive...

...Could the Right govern with Mitterrand in the Elysee Palace...

...The Communists are even trying to seize the explosive issue of foreign workers and, without rejecting immigration as such, turn it against Jean-Marie Le Pen's extremist National Front...

...The tax concessions to the bourgeoisie are almost the only electorally motivated feature of the budget...