Rocard's Rocky Road in France

...Prime Minister Michel Rocard had made the peace plan for New Caledonia a priority on taking office in May...

...Now, pessimists feared, Rocard had again dented his image, barely five months after taking office...

...Rocard himself has little empathy with the Communists, yet he has much in common with Centrists like Raymond Barre, a former Prime Minister, and Simone Veil, onetime President of the European Parliament...

...It calls for decentralization of the territory and contains provisions for economic aid...

...Mitterrand dislikes seeing his government at odds with his party and with the generally pro-Socialist public sector...

...When it comes to personality, the present Prime Minister makes an interesting comparison with his three predecessors under Mitterrand...

...Michel Rocard, so often the odd man out, does not hide the fact that he thinks highly of himself...

...Of the 37 per cent who bothered to participate —the lowest turnout since 1815—80 per cent cast the "oui" ballot...

...He is impulsive, and his repartees are frequently biting and arrogant...

...As the results came in on the evening of November 6, radio and television commentators immediately began speculating what the low turnout meant for Rocard's chances of survival...

...And this healthy approval rating can scarcely be attributed to the Prime Minister's tiptoeing in the Presidential shadow...

...In 1972 Georges Pompidou successfully resorted to a referendum to win backing for Britain's admission to the European Community and simultaneously obtain a show of approval for the presidency...

...A keen sailor, Rocard knows that sea breezes can change...

...Rocard, it appears, possesses both...

...After all, a number of other leading Socialists also have their eyes on the top job...

...Whereas the Socialists, who hold a narrowplurality in the National Assembly, were joined by the Communists and Centrists in supporting the plan, RPR leaders had pusillanimously urged nonparticipation in the referendum on the grounds that, while peace was welcome, a oui vote was a vote for Rocard...

...Laurent Fabius, though efficient and articulate, was a little too coolly confident...

...In addition, the local Melanesian community, French settlers and various ethnic minorities will have 10 years to decide whether they prefer independence or continued affiliation with France...

...Nevertheless, his directness and zest have had a refreshing effect on French politics...

...de Gaulle took that rejection personally and resigned...

...His attitude was evident during the October strikes that spread from hospitals to schools to post offices and transport, when he played Queen Elizabeth to Rocard's Thatcher: Just as the Queen had expressed demure concern about her police fighting her miners, the French President told striking nurses that he "understood" their grievances...

...In addition, the Prime Minister's economic melody—echoing Margaret Thatcher's, though in a mellower tone —pleases his Centrist friends but jars the nerves of some fellow Socialists who would prefer to hear less about inflation and more about unemployment and higher wages...

...Proceeds from a wealth tax are being used by Rocard to finance benefit programs for the underprivileged...

...In offering a twoyear proposal on wages and new recruitments in the public sector, for example, he expressed the view—to the resentment of the unions—that promotions and higher pay should be tied to efficiency in order to make the bureaucracy more responsive to those it is supposed to serve...

...Opinion polls taken just before the balloting suggested that between 50 and 60 per cent of the public is satisfied with Rocard...

...After that the device fell into disuse—until last November 6, when voters were invited to approve or reject a peace plan for New Caledonia, France's handful of pebbles in the Pacific...

...In many ways, Rocard the Protestant recalls his Jewish mentor, Pierre Mendès-France, who died in 1982...

...In several areas the Rocard government is already having an impact on everyday life...

...Primary and secondary education in France is currently suffering from overcrowded classrooms, low pay, experimentation with wellmeaning but sometimes unrealistic methods, and a general slackening of discipline...

...Even Socialist support for Rocard was muted...

...Since 1968, when schools and universities threw open their doors to mass education, successive governments have sought to overhaul the system by imposing global reforms inspired more by ideology than by classroom realities...

...All that may be reading too much into the referendum...

...Next, he turned his attention to Algeria—where, he foresaw, "weapons would not be enough" to keep the French flag flying...

...Improving the picture will depend in large part on whether the Prime Minister manages to put common sense before abstract theory...

...He pulled France out of Indochina and granted a measure of self-determination to Tunisia...

...To some extent, Rocard is reaping successes sown by Jacques Chirac, his conservative predecessor...

...Chirac, in turn, benefited from the austerity imposed by the Socialist Laurent Fabius, himself an initially reluctant convert to the economic liberalism that his rival Rocard was already preaching...

...like Prospero, he is watching from the wings to see whether Rocard-Ferdinand can clear a hefty stack of issues and prove himself worthy to woo Miranda-Marianne...

...Both Mitterrand and Rocard are understandably loath to do anything that might endanger the French economy's improved state of health...

...Pierre Mauroy exuded generous enthusiasm, but his good intentions did not always translate into economic sense...

...It was recalled how in 1981 Rocard had tried to get himself nominated as the Socialist Party's presidential candidate over François Mitterrand—who then kept him waiting seven years before appointing him Prime Minister...

...Ergo, the results were by their lights a " crushing defeat" for the Prime Minister...

...Rocard's plan for New Caledonia is a creditable effort to avoid repeating the same mistake...

...Mendès-France acted decisively in office...

...De Gaulle, by contrast, simply washed his hands of the matter in 1962, after six years of fighting that cost the lives of 1.5 million Moslems and ended with the exodus of 1 million French Algerians to France...

...Dangerous driving is being curbed by punitive legislation (France's total of 12,000 road casualties last year was twice that of Britain, which has roughly the same population...

...Nevertheless, Mitterrand is on the whole backing the firm stance of his Prime Minister, who is refusing to consider pay raises beyond the 2 per cent already granted...

...In 1969 a surfeited electorate, confronting his fifth referendum, said "non" to a two-pronged proposal to weaken the Senate and strengthen regional power...

...Rocard, who is still schoolboyishlooking at 58, has been toying with the idea of himself as President of the Republic since the student-and-worker excitement of 1968...

...On becoming Prime Minister in 1954, Mendès-France faced a daunting array of problems: war in Indochina, anti-French restlessness in North Africa, a Rightwing military hierarchy that remained ulcered after its 1939 defeat by Hitler and could not stomach the idea of France's colonial empire falling apart...

...This autumn's food riots in Algeria have revived memories of how MendèsFrance tried to lay the groundwork for a peaceful future for the region...

...His government is also setting up special care centers for children born of drug addicts and victims of AIDS...

...And that makes him one of the most admirable politicians in France today...

...There is, moreover, a steady anti-Rocard current in Socialist ranks...

...Both support Rocard's peace plan for New Caledonia and, like him, shy away from nationalism and anti-American posturing...

...Mendès-France believed that it took character and courage to stay honest in politics...

...Arguing that larger wage increases would be canceled out by an ensuing flare-up of inflation, the President told a Communist deputy on November 9 that such concessions would be little more than "monnaie de singe" —"monkey money...

...Yet Mitterrand, never tenderly inclined toward his younger would-be rival, can just as easily push Rocard down as pull him up if he stumbles...

...But his desire to give more rights to the local Moslem population was too much for the French settlers in Algeria, and the French Army branded him a traitor...

...Many who had hoped to join the government resent Rocard's drawing nearly half of his ministers from the outside, mostly from Centrist ranks...

...A pharmaceutical concern that had announced its intention to withdraw its "morning after" pill from the market to placate anti-abortion groups has been forced by official protests and threats to reverse its decision...

...Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...

...Though neither has joined his government, some of their followers have...

...Another of Rocard's concerns is the morale of teachers...

...The Prime Minister's belief that his generation will be to blame if Europe is not federated "within 20 or 30 years" goes down well among the Centrists...

...Eight months after he was named Prime Minister, Mendès-France resigned...

...Rocard would rather have seen France share in the building of a European fighter aircraft, alongside Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain...

...Some of his friends saw in his determination to hold the referendum despite the likelihood of a low turnout the same penchant for sticking his neck out that has damaged him in the past...

...But he tried the trick once too often...

...Indeed, the reelected Mitterrand is the one who has withdrawn into the draperies...

...More than New Caledonia or the Rafale fighter-plane, it is the government's awareness of daily affairs that the average citizen appreciates, and Rocard seems to realize this...

...The Algerian wound has still not healed, either in France or in its former colony...

...in a recent television interview he warned listeners that it was not merely because he had "taken over the ship's command that the wind is stronger and we can sail faster...

...Misused by the two Napoleons and consequently mistrusted by French politicians during the Third and Fourth Republics, they nonetheless enabled Charles de Gaulle to usher in the Fifth Republic and consolidate his personal power...

...The Prime Minister himself admitted disappointment at the electorate's "stingy" response...

...The approved plan was designed to bring a measure of tranquillity to New Caledonia, which had been sliding toward civil war in the spring...

...he hoped for a strong referendum showing, to inhibit any future government from tampering with it...

...This is particularly irritating to the sizable Socialist faction that, notwithstanding the party's pale relations these days with the Communists, still prefers alliances to the Left over those to the Right...

...Industrial investment is up by 15 per cent over the same period last year...

...Buoyant economic prospects and a combination of revamped training schemes and new incentives for job-creation pushed the unemployment rate down from 10.5 percent in August to 10.2 per cent in September...

...So do his publicly expressed doubts about the Rafale, a French fighter aircraft backed by a lobby of armaments industrialists, neo-Gaullists, Communists, and even Socialists...

...foremost among them are Education Minister Lionel Jospin, Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement, and former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius...

...Partisans of the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic Party (RPR), by contrast, were glowing for the first time since their setback in this spring's presidential and parliamentary elections...

...Economic growth, which was targeted at 2 per cent for 1988, is currently riding at 3.5 per cent...

...Jacques Chirac overflowed with nervous energy that exhausted those around him...