Giscard's Call

In a blunt speech, he comes out swinging

"I am addressing myself to those who are searching, to those who still don 't know, to those who are silent, to those who will vote for the first time, to those who want to be sure to choose well. "

With this ringing rhetoric, delivered to an audience of 20,000 under a huge tent in the small Burgundian town of Verdun-sur-le-Doubs, French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing finally jumped into his country's roiling political campaign. At stake when the electorate chooses a new National Assembly in late March may be the political stability of the Fifth Republic. With the latest polls now indicating that the leftist opposition will win a 25-to 27-seat majority in the Assembly despite the breach between the Socialists and their erstwhile Communist allies, there is a real chance that France's next Premier will be Socialist Leader Franc,ois Mitterrand. But since there is no Fifth Republic precedent for a leftist Premier and Cabinet working under a center-right President, there are grave worries that collisions over their deep policy differences could paralyze the government and sharply divide the country. Preventing such a development was clearly the aim of Giscard's tough speech, which was directed at the 20% of the voters who the polls say are still undecided.

Abandoning the near-Olympian distance he had maintained up to now from the bitter political skirmishing, Giscard attacked the left headon. Pointing out some of the successes achieved by Premier Raymond Barre's policy of cautious stimulation--a December trade surplus, four months of falling unemployment and a slowing rate of inflation (0.3% for December)--Giscard argued that only the center and right were capable of leading the country out of its lingering economic malaise. "If we want to be cured," he thundered, "we must choose the right doctor. If we choose the easy way out, the economy will revenge itself and it will revenge itself against you."

He warned that "a program inspired by collectivist ideas would plunge France into economic disorder." Those who planned to cast protest votes against the government in the belief that the President would keep a leftist Assembly from passing radical measures must beware: "You can choose the [left's program], but it will be carried out. Don't think that the President has the constitutional means to prevent it."

The left, predictably, was angered by Giscard's fusillade. Only 24 hours earlier, Mitterrand had told a national television audience that Giscard would debase the presidency if he engaged in partisan politics. Exclaimed the Socialist leader: "You cannot at the same time be a referee on the field and captain of the team." To which Giscard replied: "The President... cannot remain indifferent to the fate of France. He is at the same time a referee and someone with responsibility. His electoral district is France."

Giscard had words too for the leaders of the Gaullists in the government coalition who have accused him of seeking an alliance with the Socialists that would leave the Gaullists out in the cold. The President, in fact, had been hoping to create a broad centrist coalition stretching from moderate left to moderate right. In his speech, he denied having engaged in "obscure maneuvers." He declared: "Our efforts must be to extend, and I say clearly extend, the present [center-right] majority. The larger the crew, the farther the ship will go." The speech surely battered chances for any sort of center-left deal after the election, which means that Giscard will really need all the crewmen he can muster --including the Gaullists as well as those key voters in the undecided column--as March approaches.

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