Hail the Beleaguered Hero

By James Kelly

Washington effusively embraces an embattled Mitterrand

From the moment Franc,ois Mitterrand stepped off the Concorde in Washington last week, he was accorded a hero's welcome. A booming 21-gun salute and brassy rendition of La Marseillaise greeted the French President on the White House lawn. He was invited to address Congress, a conspicuous honor for a visiting head of state. At a sparkling state dinner, with Ronald Reagan as host, he was feted in the company of such luminaries as Actor James Stewart and Novelist William Styron. Throughout it all, the warm words flowed like champagne. Calling his country "a constant ally that can be counted on," Mitterrand described the U.S. and France as "brothers in arms, who from Yorktown all the way through the ages to Beirut have shed their blood together."

For a deeply conservative U.S. President and a Socialist French leader with four Communists in his Cabinet to have anything good to say about each other is remarkable enough. The amiable, easygoing Reagan and the aloof, intellectual Mitterrand, moreover, could hardly be more different. Yet the Franco-American alliance is at its rosiest since Charles de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. "We have never seen relations so good," says a top State Department official.

Washington is especially pleased by Mitterrand's foreign policy. A staunch advocate of the Atlantic Alliance, the French President strongly supported the deployment of new U.S. missiles on European soil. He contributed 2,000 men to the Multi-National Force in Beirut (the last to depart, the French plan to withdraw this week) and dispatched some 3,000 troops to halt a Libyan-backed rebellion in Chad. The only major disagreement is on U.S. policy in Central America, which Mitterrand implicitly criticized during his speech to Congress. "Civil wars are not triggered by external influence alone, even if they may serve foreign interests," he said, alluding to Reagan's contention that the Soviet Union is behind the region's turmoil.

East-West relations dominated the private talks at the White House. Arguing that Moscow now realizes that it cannot drive a wedge between the U.S. and Europe, Mitterrand urged Reagan to look for a "signal" that could lead to a dialogue with the Soviets. Reagan and Soviet Leader Konstantin Chernenko have exchanged letters over the past few weeks, but the polite missives have broken no new ground. Said a senior Administration official: "Thus far the Soviets have given no indication they are willing to resume talks."

The White House sessions, which lasted four hours, touched upon a menu of issues, including French complaints about high exchange rates and the burgeoning U.S. deficit. Despite the language barrier, the two men got along well, exchanging cheerful banter while photographers clicked away. As bulbs flashed, Mitterrand noted wryly to Reagan that "George Washington faced a much quieter life."

For Mitterrand, the eight-day visit came as a welcome break from headaches at home. Nearly three years into his seven-year term, he is the least popular French President in a quarter-century, with an approval rating in opinion polls of only 32%. Inflation chugs along at 9%, while unemployment, which stood at 6.4% when Mitterrand took office, is now 9.3%, leaving more than 2.1 million Frenchmen jobless. Over the past few months, Mitterrand has been bedeviled by protest marches and strikes by groups ranging from truckers to coal miners to civil servants.

Mitterrand's troubles can be traced to the economic austerity program he launched in 1982. During his first year in office, the Socialist President nationalized a flock of industries and tried to spend the country out of recession, but a sagging franc and surging inflation persuaded Mitterrand to return to the more cautious policies of his conservative predecessor, Valery Giscard d'Estaing. Under the direction of Finance Minister Jacques Delors, the Socialist government experimented with wage and price controls, cut spending and instituted an ambitious "industrial restructuring" that could over the next four years lead to the layoff of 50,000 workers in unprofitable industries like steel and coal mining. Over the longer run, Mitterrand's aides fret, the government will be forced to sustain its belt tightening until the parliamentary elections scheduled for mid-1986, when the Socialists may pay dearly at the polls for what critics have dubbed "Thatcherism `a la gourmandise."

The harsh economic measures overshadow Mitterrand's other accomplishments. The French ad mire his muscular foreign policy as much as Washington does. In the deluge of reform legislation passed during his first year, Mitterrand abolished the death penalty and raised the minimum wage. In his assault on France's centralized rule, his government has chipped away Paris' stranglehold on the rest of the country.

Before leaving for Washington last week, Mitterrand tried valiantly to resolve differences among his fellow leaders of the ten-member European Community. He put to gether a carefully crafted compromise for a two-day E.C. summit meeting in Brussels, only to see his plan fall apart at the last minute. The impasse came over British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's demand for a refund on her country's outsize contribution to the Community's budget. Though Thatcher cut her demand to $1.12 billion and Mitterrand sweetened his offer to $935 million, the gap could not be bridged. Thatcher, grumbled Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, "used to be the Iron Lady. Now she is Mme. Nyet."

Throughout the squabbling, however, Mitterrand received high marks from the others, including Thatcher. During the two months before the Brussels meeting, he had flown to each of the nine capitals and met with Thatcher twice. He pledged last week to renew his shuttle diplomacy, since he hopes to strike a compromise be fore the next summit in June, when his term as chairman expires. "Europe of the Ten is not dead," he declared at the end of the Brussels meeting. "It has suffered a further blow, but the situation is not desperate. We'll be pressing on." It is the same determination that is admired in Washington and sustains him through adversity at home.

--By James Kelly. Reported by Jordan Bonfante with Mitterrand and Johanna McGeary /Washington

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante, Johanna McGeary