FRANCE: Fateful Election

Speaking slowly for effect on television, pugnacious Communist Party Chief Georges Marchais last week called the nation’s Minister of Justice, Alain Peyrefitte, “a liar.” “That’s a good start,” responded the Minister mildly. A few days later, Premier Raymond Barre derisively branded Marchais an “Ali Baba,” whose economic program was pure fantasy. Socialist Party Leader Fraçois Mitterrand reproached his supposed allies, the Communists, for insulting him. “That’s a simple lie,” retorted the Communist daily L’Humanité. Gaullist Leader Jacques Chirac had earlier described as an unsavory plot the alliance of small parties supporting President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

This was the level of political debate in France last week as the nation prepared for the March 12 and 19 parliamentary elections. The disparity between the stakes in the elections and the banality of the arguments was surprising, since the vote might well determine whether France would continue on its center-right course or veer—no one could say how far—to the left. The polls still showed the leftist parties leading the governing coalition, 50% to 45%, but under the two-round voting system the final outcome remained unpredictable.

Consumed with their own internal political feuds, the French seemed almost oblivious to some of the dangerous consequences of a leftist victory that would bring not just a change in leadership and policies but a mutation in the nation’s economic system (see box). In addition, it might produce a constitutional crisis involving Giscard and a Socialist Premier with conflicting ideological views. There was the possibility too that France might become the first major Western European nation in 30 years to install Communists as heads of government ministries, a prospect that could only embolden the left throughout Europe.

No matter what the outcome, the next National Assembly seemed condemned to reflect the nation’s divided political attitudes. Even if the present center-right government managed to survive, it would probably do so by such a narrow margin that any future government’s effectiveness and longevity would be limited.

Considering the possibly historic consequences, the last days of the campaign should have been boiling with excitement and suspense. The French are supposed to be a volatile people. What is more, they had repeatedly been warned by politicians left and right that they were making a fateful ideological “choice of society.” Yet most French voters seemed to be finding the entire affair a boring and often irrelevant sideshow.

The ennui was an ironic commentary on the confused French political scene, in which the center-right and the left-wing opposition were splintered into four competing groups, each trying to explain its quarrels to an increasingly indifferent electorate. As a result, the Frenchman’s distrust of politicians deepened. “Left or right,” shrugged the owner of a small porcelain shop in Paris’ middle-class 18th arrondissement, “it’s the same salad.” Complained a nearby bistro owner: “The politicians always make a deal. Don’t worry about that.” In short, for many voters the campaign had become political Grand Guignol, masking power deals that were too arcane to fathom.

To be fair, the French have rarely been so saturated with politics. This will be their fourth trip to the polls in the past five years. The present campaign really began four years ago when the Socialists’ Mitterrand barely missed (by 300,000 votes) defeating Giscard for the presidency. Since then, in cantonal and municipal elections, the Socialist-Communist alliance has gained impressive strength; Communist mayors now rule 75 cities. Seven months ago the dynamic left appeared an easy winner over the squabbling governing coalition in the elections. But when the Communists broke with their Socialist partners last September, the political mood began to change.

On the left, frustration and disillusionment grew, despite its edge in opinion polls. On the right, last week, there was a faint flicker of hope. At a Paris dinner party, a wealthy baron confided that he had just placed a bet of $10,000 with Ladbrokes, the British bookmakers, on a victory for the present government. The odds: 4 to 5. The left’s chances were rated at dead even. The baron explained that he was not counting on any change in voter sentiment. The left would lose, he said, because after the first round of voting, the Communists would refuse to give their support to front-running Socialists in the second round. He was not alone in that opinion. The depressed Paris stock market rose 5.9% over the past two weeks on the strength of similar and perhaps equally wishful thinking.

Still, the business community was taking no chances. At the headquarters of a major multinational company, an iron gate was installed to protect the offices against attacks by street mobs. The top management of a French heavy-machinery company in the Paris suburbs changed the locks on their factory doors to prevent a lockout by workers. Commercial transactions were being carried out mainly on a day-to-day basis, with immediate payment demanded. In the vast government ministries, the bureaucracy meandered, as decisions were postponed until after the elections.

The question most Frenchmen asked now was no longer whether the right or left would win but which side was going to lose. “This is an election,” said former Gaullist Minister Alexandre Sanguinetti last week, “that nobody deserves to win.” Hardly anyone except the campaign workers would disagree. As Chirac, the center-right coalition’s most effective campaigner, barnstormed through Paris, he received a friendly but far from enthusiastic reception. Fruit and Vegetable Vendor Albert Calzorossa called it all “theater,” adding: “Nothing will change for us. The supermarkets will continue to drive us out of business, and no politician will bother to help small merchants.” He paused to watch Chirac buss a giggling matron on both cheeks. “That Chirac,” he sighed. “Big shoulders, small head.”

Outside Paris, the provinces, once bastions of rural conservatism, have shifted further to the left. In eastern Lorraine, the crisis in the steel industry has produced a backlash against the government parties. “Most voters want change,” said Jean-Pierre Parisot, the political correspondent for L’Est Républicain, “but they don’t know how and they don’t know how much.” Similarly, in Toulouse, where the aeronautics industry is in trouble, voters were looking left. “The people are not afraid of any drastic change if the left wins,” said Jean-Claude Soulery, political reporter of the local paper.

What most distressed French voters was the feeling that they could not persuade their politicians to provide clear and sensible solutions to their concerns. The candidates rarely discussed publicly the deep-rooted economic problems that are afflicting not only France but the rest of Europe. Instead, the campaign has been one of promises and threats, combined with a blizzard of contradictory and indigestible economic statistics. Nor, said most voters, did the politicians address themselves to the most important political questions in people’s minds. If the left wins, will the Communists join in the government? If they did not join, would the Socialists make a deal with the center parties? If the center-right coalition wins, whose policies will prevail—those of Reformist Giscard or those of the more conservative Chirac? Since these answers have not been forthcoming, most Frenchmen have simply tuned out until after the first round of voting.