The Compleat Candidate

Summer rains swept the green countryside of the Ile-de-France. Splashing sheets of water, Charles de Gaulle's presidential cortege barreled along the cobbled lanes under sodden chestnut and plane trees, past grey stone farmhouses and into crossroad hamlets where the faithful waited--schoolchildren holding limp paper flags, white-haired women huddled under umbrellas, village mayors draped with tricolored sashes of office. Disdainfully hatless and coatless, the rain plastering his hair to his pink scalp, De Gaulle plunged into the crowds, grasping outstretched hands.

It was advertised as the general's final provincial tour before next winter's presidential elections, and though he has so far refused to say whether he will run or not, De Gaulle looked and sounded very much the compleat candidate. He was also in imperial form. At Provins, the mayor, who happens also to be De Gaulle's Information Minister Alain Peyrefitte, trumpeted: "Our town has received sovereigns: Philip Augustus, Charles VII in the company of Joan of Arc, Napoleon. But we have never received a President of the Republic. When this President is called General de Gaulle, our honor is redoubled by joy." Without a blink, De Gaulle replied: "Your reception, which moves me and makes me happy, is for me an element of determination in what follows"--meaning, presumably, his decision to run again.

Prewar Symbol. Whether he would have anyone to run against was unexpectedly thrown in doubt last week. Suddenly dashed were the hopes of Socialist Candidate Gaston Defferre, who had boldly tried to forge a federation of the socialist left and Catholic center parties, thus building a potent opposition to the Gaullists out of the splintered factions that still plague French politics (TIME, June 18). After a week of bitter negotiations, representatives of the center and left parties found themselves hopelessly at odds over all the old divisions that rent the Fourth Republic: state aid to schools, nationalization, relations with the Communists (who regularly poll 20% or so of the vote in France). The conferees could not even agree on the name of the proposed federation.

After an all-night session, a haggard Defferre emerged to admit failure, and with it little incentive to continue his own candidacy. He never had any chance of beating De Gaulle. But his federation would at least have helped move France toward a two-party system, which many think is essential if the old chaos is not to follow the demise of Gaullism in France. In the wake of Defferre's failure, it was symptomatic that Paris was talking about the possible candidature of onetime Premier Antoine Pinay. Pinay would appeal to the pro-Atlantic, anti-Gaullist conservative vote. But he is also the very symbol of prewar, smalltown, middle-class Catholic France--and he is, at 73, only 13 months younger than Charles de Gaulle himself.

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