Balladur Takes Command

...The government is determined to prevent such districts from becoming "lawless areas,' so her efforts here will overlap with Pasqua's...

...Balladur considers this essential to aiding the integration of legal immigrants and preserving social harmony: "On the one hand there are human rights," he says, "on the other a nation's rights...

...Incidentally, he is France's second consecutive Prime Minister with foreign blood in his veins: Pierre Beregovoy was the son of humble Ukrainian immigrants...

...With no undersecretaries, his Administration is one of the sparest this country has known in recent years...

...Critics cite the narrow oui to the Maastricht Treaty in last September's referendum on tighter European union, and the March 28 electoral landslide scored by the conservative alliance consisting of Balladur's Center-Right Union for French Democracy (UDF) and the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR...

...Pasqua, despite his tough manner, supports the reformist brand of Gaullism, bent on social progress, that helped make the General popular...

...citizens are to be issued new identity documents that should, in theory, be impossible to forge...

...He reckons that to bring it down to 2.5 per cent of GNP, from around 4.5 per cent at present, will take five years...

...the judicial system and the government as a whole must recover the impartiality he feels has been lost under successive Socialist administrations...

...The Minister for Humanitarian Aid, Lucette Michaux, is a black woman from Guadeloupe who makes no secret of her skepticism about the long-term value of highly publicized aid to the Third World...

...But the new government is not giving law enforcers free rein: Following the recent deaths of three young men at the hands of police, Pasqua swiftly sacked several senior officials and ordered that one officer be charged with "voluntary homicide...

...During the campaign, Balladur stressed the importance of reducing the public deficit...

...Nicholas Sarkozy, the Minister for the Budget and Government Spokesman, is of Hungarian stock...

...At present it rests largely on employers' shoulders, pushing up labor costs...

...Already police checks have been stepped up in airports and in urban areas...

...Achieving status abroad will mean measured change at home...

...The Prime Minister's commitment to maintaining the franc's parity with the German mark should reassure those across the Rhine who worry that the new government's anti-Maastricht supporters might pressure it into a devaluation, a la John Major...

...Since the $3.6 billion he has asked Sar-kozy to pare off the current budget is actually meant to be reallotted, taxes will undoubtedly have to be raised...

...It may...

...he has chosen not to occupy the official residence at Matignon...

...Even his loudly-cheered decision to halt the closure of rural public services was first suggested by Socialist Prime Minister Edith Cresson as a way to curb the urban pull...

...Sacrifices will be required of everyone," warns the Prime Minister, and he is setting an example...

...Bringing him back was a canny concession to RPR hardliners, as was the Prime Minister's announcement that children of policemen killed in the line of duty will now be considered war orphans...

...He has announced that he will double the number of job-training programs, ask a think tank of international experts for new approaches to creating jobs, and solicit the views of businesses and trade unions on the troubled economy...

...He intends to merely "touch up" Socialist legislation on legal procedure, high-school cur-riculums and socially useful job programs...

...The new Minister for Health, Social and Urban affairs, Si-mone Veil, is a staunch European...

...Balladur's 30-member government has Centrists in most of the key posts, a good mix of generations—ranging from people in their 30s to others in their 60s?and a cosmopolitan flavor...

...farmers, emblems of regional and cultural heritage, have to be protected...

...Daunting tasks face Veil...

...A POLICY OF RESTRAINT Balladur Takes Command By jance valls-russell Paris In Smyrna, Turkey, back in 1929, fairies must have watched over the cradle of France's new Prime Minister, Edouard Balladur...

...A former magistrate, Veil believes in fairness, not laxity...

...Pasqua's job includes combating illegal immigration...

...This was the keynote of his policy statement, which ended by emphasizing the need for "greater military and political cohesion" within the European Community (although he is not a federalist) and for "balance and stability in Europe...

...The Prime Minister has a strong vision of national identity: illegal immigration has to be fought...

...Editorial deference, a 73 per cent popularity rating, a standing ovation for his policy statement from the Center-Right majority, grudging respect from the Socialist opposition—rarely has such consensus surrounded a Prime Minister's first days on the job...

...If he gets his way, children born here of immigrant parents will no longer be granted French citizenship automatically, but will have to apply for it at age 18...

...under the Chanel suit and quiet sophistication is a French-born Jew who lost most of her family in Auschwitz, where she too was interned...

...All this, he declares, requires "a rupture with the past decade" (except the 1986-88 "cohabitation" period that paired Socialist President Francois Mitterrand with RPR Prime Minister Jacques Chirac...

...Instead, he would "make an example once again of our country...

...Soon after assuming office, Balladur reduced social charges on minimum wages (the state will make up the difference) and announced tax incentives designed to stimulate activity in the building industry...

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

...The man at the top walks to work every morning from his personal flat...

...Whether that dovetailing will succeed remains to be seen...

...The news that the Bank of France will be given "autonomy" also should please the Germans...

...While maintaining continuity in social and welfare policy, Balladur has ordered a clampdown on crime and illegal immigration to redress what many perceived as "Socialist laxity...

...After the heady days of the 1980s, France in the '90s may be distinguished by Balladurian restraint...

...His two-pronged strategy is illustrated by the ministerial "couple" in charge of it...

...He is now predicting it will reach $60 billion in 1993?15 billion more than his estimate only a few weeks ago...

...The man seems to take it all for granted, displaying a cardinal's lofty humility: "As a child I was taught in catechism that grace is a state to be deserved.' Balladur's origins, the composition of his government, and his April 8 policy statement before the National Assembly belie the contention of some foreign commentators that France has become introverted and chauvinistic...

...In addition to preserving France's high standard of welfare and health benefits, she has to find a way to spread out the financial burden...

...The Prime Minister wants to revise the Nationality Code, too...

...Confronted with the Balladur style, however, the argument wilts much as Bertie Wooster does when caught eating sardine sandwiches by Jeeves...

...For the moment, though, the new levies are expected to be indirect ones, on items such as tobacco and alcohol...

...The main test for the new team will be its ability to cope with unemployment...

...Many here are hoping, in fact, that the Bundesbank will be moved to further lower its interest rates...

...Similarly under scrutiny is the right of immigrants to bring over extended family, since it has involved cases of polygamy...

...The coarseness of nationalism ill fits a man whose indefinable class and mastery of understatement may come from his centuries-long lineage of French-Armenian bankers and advisers to Sultans...

...Meanwhile, some of the funds released as a result of privatization are expected to go toward what Veil calls a "national humanitarian program" to fight drugs, social ills and the general squalor of the drab high-rise suburbs where underskilled, often jobless French and immigrants crowd in with their families...

...The moderate Veil—perhaps the most respected figure in French politics—has been cast as the better half of Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, the pugnacious advocate of law and order who occupied the same post during the first cohabitation...

...In the interim, he is urging employers to avoid layoffs if at all possible, and he continues to caution against expecting miracle solutions...

...Yet in reality Balladur is a reformer at heart (the title of his latest book is Dic-tionnaire de la Reforme...

...His plan to re-privatize companies nationalized by the Socialists indeed marks a break, but he insists it will affect only the competitive sector (pharmaceuticals and banks, for instance), not public services...

...If Michaux proves a less spectacular figure than her charismatic predecessor, Bernard Kouchner, she will be reflecting Balladur's doubts that France can still afford to operate on every front...

...At present more than 3 million French, or 10.6 per cent of the labor force, are out of work...

...Ministers have been ordered to restrict their personal staffs, keep their Socialist predecessors' official cars, use regular flights whenever possible, refrain from lavishly redecorating offices, and spend less on entertaining...