The Future of Cohabitation in France
VALLS-RUSSELL, JANICE
TRYING TIMES FOR CHIRAC The Future of Cohabitation in France BY JANICE VALLS-RUSSELL Paris Materially and culturally, France is doing well. Only a decade after rapacious oil moguls plunged...
...Chirac then told the Washington Times—which he mistook for the Washington Post—that Israel's Mossad might have engineered the plot in order to discredit Damascus...
...Chirac formed a government and found himself reporting to, and receiving directives from, a Socialist President, François Mitterrand...
...it has Europe's biggest and most efficient railroad and highway networks (outside Russia...
...then, on January 13, aFrench journalist was kidnapped...
...ExPresident Giscard d'Estaing, a liberal, has suggested a referendum on the subject, but many Gaullists are reluctant to tamper with holy writ, even though they are at present embarrassed by it...
...The French government has been much surer of itself in managing the economy...
...With a pink face and a brown one, compassionate feminine features on the left and a square-jawed masculine mug on the right, it would be almost unbeatable...
...He has also effectively undermined Mitterrand's modest efforts to improve relations with Israel...
...Perhaps the Gaullists are hoping genetic engineering will soon be able to resolve this kind of problem by creating a bicephalous creature capable of serving as President and Prime Minister...
...being under certain primitive systems a socially acceptable relation...
...In 1956-58, General Charles de Gaulle's supporters exploited French difficulties in Algeria to discredit the Fourth Republic, and persuaded the electorate to vote for a new constitution combining parliamentary and presidential principles...
...A fifth factor, when the U.S...
...The quaint arrangement was soon described as "political concubinage...
...Raymond Barre, a liberal economist, Chirac's ally last March but probably a rival contender for the presidency, has declared that government may become impossible unless Mitterrand resigns...
...Although Chirac conceded little, exasperation turned public opinion against unions, government and cohabitation alike...
...is involved, is the visceral anti-Americanism of most of the Gaullist leadership...
...Even so, the government was thrown off stride in midwinter by social agitation...
...In public, he sometimes looks uncomfortably histrionic—understandably...
...It leads Western Europe in nuclear power and aerospace technology...
...At present they are open to all who have obtained the baccalauréat, awarded for passing exams in at least seven subjects taken in the seventh year of secondary school...
...Its surrender was an invitation to other groups to try their strength...
...He has been in orbit around the Elysée for over a decade, briefly as Prime Minister under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, then as Mayor of Paris...
...Last fall, Chirac opposed the Community's action against Syria when a British court established the complicity of Syrian officials in a plot to blow up an El Al airliner...
...As this is written, six French hostages are held in Lebanon...
...Since then, the Prime Minister has been answerable both to the National Assembly, elected for five years, and to the President (initially de Gaulle), elected for seven...
...Webster's Third International dictionary was quoted for its nice definition of concubinage: "Cohabitation of persons not legally married...
...Chirac worships at the same pre-Keynesian altar as President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher...
...Janice Yalls-Ri'ssei.l writes about French and Spanish affairs for the ? L...
...concern for French hostages held by Moslem fanatics...
...And if, by chance, it were defeated, there would be brisk bidding for its services in the United States and probably Britain...
...The Prime Minister's official residence, the Hotel Matignon, is located off the Left Bank...
...Mitterrand's memoirs of cohabitation will be the sort of literary event publishers dream about...
...Many people now favor electing the President at the same time as the National Assembly and for the same term...
...In January opinion polls showed that if a presidential election had been held, a Socialist candidate would have won, and that fewer than 50 per cent of voters still considered cohabitation viable...
...Shuddering, pro-government commentators hurriedly settled for the milder "cohabitation...
...When an Algerian student died after a scuffle with two policemen, who are now under arrest, the government backed down...
...As a result, inflation fell from 4.7 per cent in 1985 to 2.1 per cent last year, and France chalked up its highest GNP growth in recent years plus a significant improvement in its balance of trade...
...France's unemployment rate stands at 10.6 per cent (Britain's is 11.3, West Germany's 8.7), and few people sympathize with the grievances of public-sector employees who have secure jobs and receive inflation-proof pay and perks...
...One union leader said the motive was mainly political, but the Socialist and Communist unions had to follow their members...
...First, students throughout France demonstrated against its plan to allow universities to reduce their massive annual intake of undergraduates—and save money—by introducing selective procedures...
...French society lays great stress on constitutional propriety, yet it has often been let down by its politicians...
...Pandering to terrorists seemed to pay off in Lebanon shortly before Christmas, when two hostages were released and Chirac thanked Syria, Algeria and the PLO for their help...
...a state of mental subserviency or bondage...
...the importance of French arms sales to the Iraqi dictatorship (which consolidated itself by terrorism and has trained some terrorists who have operated in Western Europe, notably Spain...
...Chirac's wobbliness is induced by four main factors: fear of terrorist outrages such as the bombs exploded in Paris by a Lebanese gang last summer...
...and it is a major exporter of automobiles and upmarket consumer goods, and the West's most important film-producer after the United States...
...Simone Veil, a liberal ex-minister and former president of the European Parliament, has criticized the government's "lack of solidarity with America" and the inclination of some Leftwingers and Gaullists to propitiate terrorists...
...The electoral systems adopted during the Third (pre-1940) and Fourth (1944-58) Republics produced a macédoine of small parties that made stable government difficult...
...You don't sup with the devil," Barre says, "even if you have a long spoon.' Chirac, still nominally a Gaullist, is anxious to demonstrate that the General's constitutional ideas were sound...
...Last March the inevitable happened...
...it possesses the Continent's most advanced telecommunications system, including the world's largest home Videotext network...
...Foreign Minister Jean-Bernard Raimond says: "We will not negotiate with the kidnappers, but we will talk to states that can influence them...
...The Socialist government refused to sign the European Community's 1979 agreement on the extradition of terrorists...
...and a desire to retain a measure of influence in Lebanon...
...It provides its citizens with the third highest standard of living in the European Community (after Germany and Denmark), excellent medical care, long vacations, and one of the world's best educational systems—free, secular and meritocratic...
...most voters, though, have yet to be convinced that he is presidential timber...
...These states include Iran and Iraq as well as Syria, which controls some groups of Shiite Moslems and anti-Arafat Palestinians, and Saudi Arabia, whose rulers pay protection money to potentially troublesome Syrian, Palestinian and other factions...
...A conservative alliance, led by the Gaullist Jacques Chirac, won a parliamentary election...
...He is at his best in small groups, where he charms the visitor with his urbanity and occasionally disarming frankness...
...Morally and politically, however, these are misty times here...
...Wildcat strikes halted railroad and subway services and cut power supplies for two or three hours daily for nearly a week...
...Leading a Conservative government under the keen eyes of a President who is a Socialist and a witty writer would faze the brashest politician...
...Chirac, who strikes a nationalistic pose when addressing television audiences, nevertheless has given the impression that he is spineless in his dealings with Arab and Iranian terrorists and the governments that back them...
...Mitterrand is the firmer of the two on terrorism...
...Cohabitation provides comic relief at major international meetings Chirac and Mitterrand attend together like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, but it could complicate France's international relations...
...President Mitterrand angered ministers by receiving a delegation of strikers at his country home...
...The President fixes foreign and defense policy...
...He has privatized some companies nationalized by the Socialists, relaxed some administrative constraints on free enterprise, and extended commercial influence in France's six national television channels (only two of them remain state-owned...
...Oddly, until recently, few people were worried by the possibility that President and Prime Minister might one day belong to mutally hostile parties...
...With a presidential election in the spring of 1988, Chirac is not hiding his eagerness to cross the Seine to the Elysée, the President's palace...
...Only a decade after rapacious oil moguls plunged the West into recession, this country has balanced its energy equation...
Vol. 70 • March 1987 • No. 3
