The World: Giscard: The Hard Road to Reform

It was a brief but telling European family spat. Asked on television recently about the Communist electoral threat in Italy, West Germany’s blunt Chancellor Helmut Schmidt suggested that Communist parties are really a problem only in countries where there is “reactionary clinging to old forms and old attitudes”—citing, among other examples, France. Then, in a published interview which appeared last week, Schmidt added that he did not want Communists coming to power in places like Italy and France, but if they did get government roles, it would not necessarily be a catastrophe. That was more than an irritated Paris could take. Premier Jacques Chirac rose in the National Assembly to register “astonishment” at Schmidt’s “thoughtless remarks.”

Six-Day Tour. President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who is scheduled to begin a six-day U.S. tour next week, surely did not care to be reminded of the growing strength of the French left, and Schmidt’s remark about “old forms and old attitudes” could hardly have pleased him. When he took over the Elysee Palace almost exactly two years ago, Giscard hoped to bring about in his seven-year term a smooth transition from the encrusted look that French politics had assumed after 16 years of Gaullist domination.

Giscard took office emphasizing his differences with the conservative Gaullists and promising reforms that would turn France into “an advanced liberal society.” To some extent, he has delivered, with such modern trappings as liberal divorce, abortion (almost on demand) and the vote for 18-year-olds. He has also successfully softened the authoritarian style of his predecessors, wearing business suits when De Gaulle or Pompidou would have appeared in morning coats and sharing an occasional meal at the homes of ordinary French people. But the novelty of Giscard’s consciously unimperial style has long since worn off, and he has lately had to deal with a realization that among most of his voters, his most appealing quality was not his pledge of change but his parallel promise of continuity.

Giscard’s attempted reforms have hurt him with his own party; his abortion measure, for example, was opposed by many members of his centrist, multiparty coalition and got through parliament mainly through the support of opposition Deputies. At the same time, Giscard’s early beckonings to the left failed to draw much support among the Socialists, who have become the largest party on the French left. Despite Giscard’s innovations, real government and parliamentary power still lies with the old guard. Says Pierre Castagnou, 35, a Parisian catering-company executive whose views are typical of many young French professionals: “Giscard is the only true reformer in his coalition. He would like to be the social democratic President of France, but his electorate won’t allow him to make fundamental reforms. The result is that he only talks reforms.”

Though Giscard remains confident that his political situation is manageable (see box), some of his own political allies are not sure. The left captured 53% of the total vote in local elections last March, including 26% for the Socialists and 23% for the Communists. Recent polls suggest that Socialist-Communist Union of the Left candidates will win a majority of the races in the 1978 parliamentary elections. If they do, Giscard, whose own term as President runs until 1981, may be forced to appoint a Premier from the left. The result, many French politicians believe, could be a paralyzing deadlock between the President and a hostile parliamentary majority, leading to a flight of capital, street demonstrations, strikes and, perhaps, the collapse of the Fifth Republic.

Real Reforms. These possibilities will remain if more and more Frenchmen become persuaded that only the left can accomplish a program of real reforms. Giscard’s ability to prove them wrong is in doubt: politically, he has lately begun to pedal back to the right. Recently he awarded his Premier the title of “coordinator and animator” of the presidential majority parties in the Assembly. Because “Bulldozer” Chirac, 43, is a committed Gaullist, his new job was a signal that Giscard now sees more need to regain the conservative voters he has scared off than to continue to try to recruit new strength from the left. France’s recovery from its bout with recession and inflation—down from a rate of 15% two years ago to just under 10% today—may help limit the erosion of Giscard’s support. But he faces a difficult long-term task in persuading France’s voters that the time has not yet come to give the left a chance to rule.