Unswerving Gaullist

British entry into the European Common Market will coincide with the designation of a French representative to the rotating presidency of the European Economic Community Commission. The confluence may be stormy. The chief French nominee is expected to be Francois-Xavier Ortoli, 47, until last month Minister of Industrial and Scientific Development in President Georges Pompidou's Cabinet. Sir Christopher Soames, the probable British commission member, has reportedly threatened not to serve unless a Frenchman of "stature" is selected. What the British really object to, however, is Ortoli's unswerving Gaullism.

Ortoli, the Corsica-born, Hanoi-raised son of a high-level French civil servant, has up to now moved steadily higher because he has proved an apt and loyal troubleshooter for Pompidou. That, presumably, is precisely the quality Pompidou desires at the head of the Common Market Commission. Britain, West Germany and Benelux fear that as successor to hearty Pan-European Sicco Mansholt, Ortoli will favor Pompidou's cautious approach to European integration, pressures for an EEC "political secretariat" in Paris, and insistence on strict independence from the U.S.

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