The Man of Letters as President

IN his interview with TIME, Georges Pompidou not only discussed the immediate political problems of running a nation, but also provided some intriguing insights into his thinking about French society and modern civilization. His words reveal the intellectual depth of a leader who, in addition to being a politician, is a former professor and accomplished man of letters. Excerpts:

ON REBELLIOUS YOUTH: I intend to talk about this at length at San Francisco after visiting Stanford University. I think that it is a usual characteristic of youth which takes on new force because adults, as well, have the impression that there is something in modern civilization which is not suitable: that we are going in the direction of a civilization dominated by material things and by the machine. This reaction on the part of youth is due not merely to age; it is a reaction of man. ON INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: In human society, as it has existed for thousands of years, a monster has made its appearance--a monster called science. Whether we like it or not, it is breaking up everything in its path. Science calls into question moral concepts, social structures, beliefs. It is obvious that its forward march cannot be impeded, but it is certain that there will be a lot of broken glass along the way. Some are endeavoring to stick the pieces together; those are the conservatives. I think that this is not enough and that what is needed is to re-create moral precepts, to re-create a social framework. The question goes beyond the social order. It concerns also the individual, what he thinks and believes within himself. I think that modern despair, which is sometimes discussed, is an individual more than a social despair.

ON HIS ELECTION SLOGAN "CONTINUITY AND OPENING": I have the weakness to think that there is no other formula for life than continuity and opening. In the old man there exists something that was already present in the child. That is continuity. Yet it would, of course, be absurd for him to keep on sucking his thumb all his life. He must open himself up to life as he gradually changes. ON FRANCE: My chief preoccupation is to make of France a modern country. This means many things. It means the transformation of agriculture, industrialization, the opening of frontiers, scientific and technical research. It also means an intellectual--I might almost say moral --transformation in the university and in relations between people at a time when it is plainly evident that former society, with its definitely established framework, has been swept away by events.

ON THE FRENCH INFLUENCE: [Thinking back to his recent election campaign, Pompidou recalled that someone had asked him whether he thought the France of the future should be more like Sweden. "With a little more sun," he quipped.] I was naturally thinking of geography, but I was also thinking of a way of life. It seems to me--maybe it's being nationalistic--that the French have a certain art of happiness, more so, perhaps, than other peoples. This is what I would like to preserve; this is-what I call "the sun," more than the sun which gives us light.

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