The Antis Have It

The French. Assembly this week found itself divided and agitated over two new words, "antianticipationisme" and "antioctobrisme." Antianticipationistes are those Deputies who want to put off this year's national elections until October; antioctobristes want to hold them in June.

This bitter dispute about dates was the latest symptom of the Assembly's deadlock over the issue of electoral reform. Most Deputies agree that the present system of proportional-representation voting must be changed before the next election. The antianticipationistes feel that the Assembly, which has fruitlessly debated the question on & off since last October, will be unable to find a workable substitute in time for elections in June.

Last week, when the Assembly finally passed an electoral reform plan (the 20th considered), it seemed to have made progress. The new plan is designed to keep as many Communists (and Gaullists) as possible out of a new Assembly, re-elect as many Deputies as possible from the government coalition (Socialists. Radical Socialists and M.R.P.). Its basic feature is election by an absolute majority, with local party coalitions permitted. This is intended to give the more plastic center parties a golden opportunity to win seats at the expense of the right and the left.

But the progress was not real. Government leaders in the Assembly had to strain party discipline to get a bare majority of 263 to 251 for their proposal. Some hundred Deputies, not quite sure how the new law would affect their own election chances, cautiously stayed away or abstained from voting. The bill now goes to the Council of the Republic, which will probably send it back to the Assembly. It will then need an absolute majority of 311 in a second vote to become law--a possibility which the most optimistic government leaders do not see.

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