Down-to-the-Wire Election

The "cold civil war," as one Paris editor described France's fiercely contested presidential-election campaign, continued right down to a bitter end. At times, as last Sunday's election approached, the two contenders seemed more interested in hurling insults than in dealing with the issues. Socialist Franc,ois Mitterrand, running with Communist backing, accused Finance Minister Valery Giscard d'Estaing of being the tool of "these princes, these dukes, these millionaires [who] have not had a new-idea in 15 years." The patrician Giscard in turn scourged his left-wing opponent for running "a violent and nasty campaign" and for trying to revive "the quarrels of the past."

If France's cold civil war seemed to heat up in its final days, that was because it was the closest race for President since Charles de Gaulle created the Fifth Republic in 1958. From the moment that Mitterrand and Giscard emerged as the leaders in the first-round election earlier this month, France's usually reliable opinion polls had the two candidates running almost dead even. At week's end one survey showed Giscard with a narrow 51% to 49% edge over Mitterrand in the decided votes, with 11% of the voters still undecided. The tightness of the race meant that the outcome could be decided by a few hundred thousand swing votes, most likely from the center of France's sharply divided political spectrum. Some observers speculated that the issue might be decided by the 2.5% of the voters who reside in France's overseas departments and territories, raising the bizarre possibility that a matter of crucial importance to all of Europe as well as France could turn on the whims of islanders in faraway Martinique or Tahiti.

The campaign laid bare deep divisions within French society--divisions that would surely trouble whomever the voters choose to succeed the late Georges Pompidou. A victory by Mitterrand would bring to power the first left-wing coalition government in France since Leon Blum's Popular Front in the turbulent late 1930s. A Mitterrand regime would also include the first Communists in any major Western European Cabinet since the cold war began--a fact that might legitimize the idea of Communists sharing power in other Western European countries, notably Italy.

Should Giscard win, France could expect much more gradual reform--and perhaps none at all for a while. Having been Finance Minister for the past five years, Giscard might be expected to set aside any costly new social programs that would interfere with efforts to control a rate of inflation running upwards of 18% a year. Foreign policy under both men would probably not veer markedly from Gaullist tradition, although Mitterrand might well maintain an even more abrasively independent stance toward the U.S. and NATO.

No Robin Hood. During the campaign, Mitterrand and Giscard both courted the center, hoping to snare enough uncommitted votes to provide one of them with the 50%--plus one vote --margin needed for victory. Both men also wooed the 15% of the vote that went to former Premier Jacques Chaban-Delmas in the first round. For Mitterrand, as for every nationally ambitious leftist leader in modern French history, the gut problem was the French bourgeoisie's distrust of a leftist government. That meant reaching beyond his hard-core Socialist-Communist support to convince middle-of-the-road Gaullists that he was not a revolutionary bent on nationalizing French industry overnight or playing Robin Hood with France's record prosperity. For the patrician Giscard, the problem was how to offer a mild vision of reform to those voters he needed from the center-left who have hungered for some social change, while talking status quo to traditional Gaullists who might have withheld their votes from Giscard because of his past opposition to le Grand Charles.

As they jetted across the country in what at times resembled an American campaign--flashy posters, hyped-up rallies, a television debate--the two candidates often sought to shade their images and political beliefs while courting voters in each other's camps. Before conservative audiences Mitterrand appeared to be the soul of statesmanlike moderation, down-playing those parts of the Socialist-Communist platform that call for sweeping upheaval. "I am not a Marxist," he insisted.

Giscard in turn tried to convey an image of Kennedyesque zest and compassion. His telegenic family assisted him as Giscard tried to shed some of his renowned hauteur. For the struggling lower classes, Giscard had a reassuring message: "You don't have a monopoly on the heart, M. Mitterrand. I am equally concerned about the social problems of France." Despite their frequent quasi-Gaullist posturing, the candidates made sure that the voters would have no trouble distinguishing between them. Mitterrand cuttingly described Giscard as "that man born before 1789" (the year of the French Revolution), while Giscard dismissed Mitterrand as "an unacceptable economic risk."

With the country so deeply split between left and right, both candidates strove to cast themselves as men who could find a new basis for future national unity. As Giscard told one audience: "Your choice is not between old political parties but the designation of a man who will give an image to France." Hours after the vote, it remained to be seen where the voters would turn for that image: left to Mitterrand, with his vague promise of "restructuring society," or right to Giscard, the advocate of an equally imprecise "change without risk."

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