• U.S.

J’Aime le Peuple Americain: Francois Mitterand

4 minute read
TIME

Champignon and all, Mitterrand is wowed by the U.S.

Behind his back, some of his entourage called him “the candidate.” There was the somber and fastidious President of France, barnstorming across the U.S. last week like a practiced old pol. He rapped about jazz in the South, cradled a squealing suckling pig in the Midwest, shook hands with demonstrators in the West, and pressed Legion of Honor medals on every mayor he met. He barely speaks a word of English, but it hardly mattered. When François Mitterrand gushed, “J’aime le peuple Americain,” everybody got the message.

As soon as his official visit with President Reagan was over, Mitterrand borrowed Air Force One and took off on a five-day, seven-city tour of all things American, from high-tech microchips from Silicon Valley to a down-home barbecue in Illinois.

Mitterrand flew first to Atlanta to place a wreath on the grave of Martin Luther King Jr. and meet with his widow. He charmed Mayor Andrew Young by claiming that when he read about the Deep South as a youth, Louis Armstrong’s version of Georgia on My Mind kept running through his head.

On reaching San Francisco, Mitterrand stole a few hours for an impromptu walk downtown with his wife Danielle. Disconcerted Secret Service escorts balefully followed the French couple up and down steep Chinatown streets, and were almost as shocked as the waiters when Mitterrand dropped into Scott’s Seafood Grill for a late-night snack. Ceremony was restored by Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who feted Mitterrand at a city hall gala. He smiled stoically as an Army brass band oompahed its way through La Marseillaise, then beamed when Violinist Isaac Stern took the podium.

In nearby Berkeley, Mitterrand’s French press corps reveled in the parade of West Coast characters: gay rights activists heckling Governor George Deukmejian, Hare Krishnas chanting in their saffron robes, all-purpose cranks going about their lonely protests. Declared one placard: ALL POLITICIANS, OF LEFT OR RIGHT, ARE PIGS. Every passing flake drew an appreciative “Oh, j’adore!” from the French entourage.

While in California, Mitterrand wallowed in American technological know-how, inspecting a solar-powered village in Davis before sitting down with high-powered Silicon Valley executives at Stanford University. The French President was rapt when Whiz-Kid Steven Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer Inc., explained how venture capital and small companies helped trigger the Silicon Valley boom.

The tone for the Midwest stop was set en route from the West Coast. As champagne was being poured in the galley, the French contingent’s well-meaning but far-from-fluent American stewardess announced that “champignon ” would soon be served. Her passengers whooped with ungallant laughter. In Gaylesburg, Ill., to tour Secretary of Agriculture John Block’s 3,000-acre farm, Mitterrand donned rubber boots, a farmer’s cap and a sky-blue jacket with MR. PRESIDENT stitched over the heart. He and Block disagreed about American exports undercutting European Community farmers, but Mitterrand lightened the mood by driving a tractor and cuddling a piglet with black-and-white markings. Said he: “Our pigs tend to be bigger and pink.”

Hoping to attract U.S. investment in France, the Socialist President assured skeptical businessmen over lunch in Manhattan, “We have not closed the factories. We have not installed an iron curtain … We have made the choice of liberty in our own way.” That evening Mitterrand hobnobbed with literary luminaries like Susan Sontag and William Styron at Writer Elie Wiesel’s apartment. Mitterrand held forth on everything from the American analytic method to the Bible, but the keeper of France’s force de frappe remained politely noncommittal when Astronomer Carl Sagan buttonholed him about the threat of nuclear war. For Mitterrand, it was a perfect way to wind up an exhilarating trip. “It’s been no vacation,” he said, “but I have found all of it deeply interesting and diverting.”

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com