The Calm Before the Battle

Mitterrand soothes fears as he prepares for the election fight

Settling into his gilded Louis XVI-style office at the Elysee Palace last week, the Socialist seemed perfectly at ease with the august French presidential style that Charles de Gaulle once described as being above the "petty elements of the everyday political fray." In a week dominated by largely symbolic meetings and gestures, President Francois Mitterrand helped calm jittery nerves at home and abroad by projecting the image of the measured statesman rather than the Socialist firebrand his critics have portrayed him to be.

Mitterrand began his first full week in the office he had pursued for 16 years by playing host to one of ex-President Valery Giscard d'Estaing's closest political allies: West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Despite initial fears that the Paris-Bonn axis would be weakened by the departure of cher Valery, Mitterrand appeared to get along fine with his fellow socialist from West Germany. The two leaders agreed to continue their joint efforts to shore up the franc. Mitterrand pledged to continue the Giscard-Schmidt policy of simultaneously beefing up European missile capacity while seeking arms-limitation talks with Moscow. Said a broadly smiling Chancellor after his three-hour meeting with Mitterrand: "Franco-German friendship no longer depends on us personally. It has become an indisputable fact." Later in the week, however, Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson declared that the Paris-Bonn axis would not operate at the expense of other European partners.

The new man in the Elysee appeared equally cautious on the domestic front. He met with union leaders to discuss his economic and social reforms, which include an immediate 10% raise in the minimum wage and a reduction of the work week to 35 hours. But action on the changes was postponed until this week. Reason: Mitterrand wants to avoid appearing too zealous so as not to damage the Socialists' chances in the parliamentary elections June 14 and 21. These will determine just how much power they have.

The President discussed the ground rules for the voting with leaders of the four main political parties. In separate meetings, he received Socialist Lionel Jospin, Communist Boss Georges Marchais, Paris Mayor and Neo-Gaullist Leader Jacques Chirac and Jean Lecanuet, head of Giscard's demoralized Union for French Democracy (U.D.F.). Mitterrand's gesture of consulting with friend and foe alike reinforced the new administration's tone of national unity.

The next day, however, the pugnacious Chirac blasted Mitterrand's nationalization and economic programs. The self-proclaimed leader of the center-right declared sarcastically, "France is not a laboratory for apprentices to try out their contradictory and irreversible experiments." It was the opening salvo of what promises to be a brutal electoral battle, in which Chirac's Gaullists and the remnants of Giscard's U.D.F. will attempt to retain their parliamentary majority and block Mitterrand's reform plans.

But the center-right forces have their problems. Not only are they shaken by internal dissensions and defections, but a recent survey indicated that Socialist candidates may almost double their present strength to control 207 seats in the 491-member National Assembly. In that case, the votes of Communists and left-wing splinter parties would give Mitterrand comfortable control. It remains to be seen whether the President will try to bargain away some future Cabinet posts to win the Communists' support in an effort to ensure himself a majority. -

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