Trying to Exorcise a Specter

"There is no heir to Gaullism. Georges Pompidou's death has ended the lineage. It is finished." So declared Socialist Party Leader Francc,ois Mitterrand, 57, who stands a reasonable chance of breaking Gaullism's 16-year monopoly of the presidency of the Fifth Republic. With twelve candidates running to succeed Pompidou in the May 5 election, public opinion polls last week showed that Socialist Mitterrand, who also has the support of France's formidable Communist Party, is now favored by 40% of the voters. Most of the Gaullist and middle-of-the-road vote is divided between Finance Minister Valery Giscard d'Estaing (28%) and former Premier Jacques Chaban-Delmas (26%).

If Mitterrand, in the two remaining weeks of the campaign, can attract enough backing from left-wing Gaullists or centrists to give him more than 50% of the total, he will become France's new President. If not, he will face the candidate with the second highest vote in a runoff on May 19. At present, Mitterrand's support probably represents the hard-core vote he will get from the dedicated left: about 20% coming from the Communists, a bit more than that from the Socialists. His problem--which has faced every leftist leader in modern French history who has approached the threshold of national power--is to overcome the French bourgeoisie's ingrained distrust of a leftist government.

It is a political cliche that "the Frenchman carries his heart on the left but his wallet on the right." Traditionally, many bourgeois vote left or at least threaten to do so as a protest. However, they quickly return to the center or right if it appears that a leftist has a chance of winning. Thus Mitterrand's best opportunity for a victory will come on the first ballot, while Chaban and Giscard fight among themselves for Gaullist support; in a runoff, he would face a unified Gaullist front.

Mitterrand's opponents have already played on bourgeois fears by implying that his victory would open the door to the Communists. In a speech last week, Chaban warned: "France is threatened by a Socialist-Communist coalition. We want nothing of it."

To counter such rhetoric Mitterrand has been emphasizing his career as a responsible statesman. In fact, there is little on the surface that is frightening about him. He has been denounced as an "opportunist" more often than as a "revolutionary." During the Fourth Republic, he served in eleven governments, some of them under rightist Premiers. His portfolios ranged from Minister of Overseas Territories to Minister of the Interior. Although he has been a Socialist for much of his political life, he still says: "I am not a Marxist."

In his personal life-style--he has a comfortable apartment on Paris' Rive Gauche, a country home, a passion for modern art-he resembles a successful businessman more than a spokesman for the working class. On television and radio, he has tried to sound moderate and conciliatory. He has recruited modishly dressed young people for his campaign staff and set up a headquarters in a new glass and steel skyscraper --all to make himself appear modern and technocratic.

Because of his electoral alliance with the Communists, Mitterrand must continually stress that he is not the party's puppet. It is almost inevitable that he would put some Communists in his Cabinet, but he has denied rumors that he would appoint Communist Party Leader Georges Marchais as Premier. That job, declared Mitterrand, would go to a Socialist. He has hinted that there would even be room in his government for centrists and left-wing Gaullists.

While busy wooing middle-of-the-road voters, Mitterrand has managed to becloud the crucial issue of what radical changes his presidency might bring. In foreign policy, he has distanced himself from his Communist partners by declaring: "France belongs to the Western world, the Atlantic world." He has said that his dealings with the U.S. would not be "so very different" from those of the current regime "but would be less abrasive." On domestic issues, he has downplayed parts of the Socialist-Communist platform that call for greater nationalization of industry and for a crash housing program by asserting that he would have to go slow "now that the economy is growing at a rate of 4.5% instead of 6%." He has promised to strengthen the franc and protect savings accounts against inflation--a prime concern of the bourgeois--by increasing the interest rate paid to depositors as the cost of living rises.

Serious Challenge. The specter of a leftist government has already spurred some wealthy Frenchmen to move their money abroad. For example, one top attorney admits that he drives regularly into Switzerland to deposit his own and his clients' funds in secret bank accounts there. Mitterrand nonetheless may be succeeding in his tranquilizing campaign. The right-wing Paris journal Minute warned last week: "Mitterrand has already won a great battle: he no longer frightens."

Still, a Mitterrand presidency would not be without its frightening aspects. "A Mitterrand victory," observes TIME Chief European Correspondent William Rademaekers, "could bring back all the uncertainties of the Popular Front government of the mid-'30s. One could expect a decline in business confidence and a rush to get assets out of the country, including the billions of francs stashed away in mattresses. Despite Mitterrand's comforting promises, the residual fears of the left will not quickly disappear. Outside France, Communists in the Cabinet of a major West European power would give Communist parties in other nations legitimacy that they have been seeking since World War II. In this sense, a Mitterrand victory could be a serious challenge to all of Europe as well as France."

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