Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MAY 15, 1981
Page 12
By a surprisingly large margin--52% to 48%--French voters turned out
incumbent President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, after his initial seven-year
term of office.
In his place they selected Socialist Party candidate
Francois Mitterrand. It was a milestone for the French left, marking the
first time that a socialist head of state with full executive powers has
ever been elected.
Mitterrand, 64, is an old political warhorse. He had run for the presidency
unsuccessfully twice before, and held 11 cabinet posts in previous govern
ments predating the de Gaulle period which began in 1958.
French voters hardly gave a ringing endorsement to socialism as an
ideology. Rather, they seemed to mainly want a change from 23 years of
center-right government under de Gaulle, Pompidou and Giscard. They were
impressed by Mitterrand
I
s level-headed campaigning as much as they were
turned off by what they perceived as Giscard's aloof "monarchial" manner.
As far as an issue was concerned, the major one was the domestic economy.
The voters ironically overlooked the fact that, under Giscard's leadership,
the French economy grew at a rate even faster than West Germany's. Giscard
instead was pinned with the blame for France's rising unemployment, now
standing at 1.7 million, or 7% of the work force.
Even Mitterrand
1
s promises to expand the federal beauracracy and to reduce
the work week from 40 to 35 hours--obviously inflationary proposals--soun
ded better to fickle voters than further rises in joblessness.
Giscard also helped seal his own doom by lowering the voting age from 21 to
18. The young voters, many of them affected by unemployment, were pre
dominantly pro-Mitterrand.
Wedge for Communists?
The new president-elect is expected to call for parliamentary elections in
late June to try to capture a majority of seats for socialist and other
leftist parties to push through his programs. The center-right parties
control parliament now. Mitterrand undoubtedly will need help from the
Communist Party, which has declined in relative power in recent years, but
still is formidable. The disciplined Communist Party structure, in fact,
secured Mitterrand's victory by delivering four million voters into his
camp. It remains to be seen whether communist support in Parliament will
come with a price--a demand for a portfolio or two in Mitterrand's cabinet.
The Mitterrand economic program contains the standard litany of the left,
including demands for further nationalization of nine large industrial
groups, including banks and insurance companies.
The mere threat of
nationalization was enough to send the Paris stock exchange into a frenzy,
producing a day-after "Black Monday" for investors.
The French franc
plummetted in value.
In foreign policy, Mitterrand might even take a harder line toward the
Soviets than his predecessor.
The Kremlin leaders, in fact, preferred
Giscard, with whom they felt they could work.
Though Mitterrand is a
confirmed "Atlanticist," his party might make it rough for the United
States in some areas of foreign policy. With a more pronounced Third World
tilt, the socialists are expected to condemn U.S. aid to "Latin American