Some sink, others swim
Sam White
Paris It's a rush for the lifeboats by Giscardiens and Communists following the wreck of their hopes and illusions in the presidential election and in the face of the waves that threaten to engulf them in the coming Parliamentary one. The lifebelts are being handed out by Chirac on the Right arrd Jospin, the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party, on the Left. The panic is painful to watch, especially among the Giscardiens. They have told Giscard, in effect, that the quicker he sinks the better, while they rally to their new saviour Jacques Chirac. And the Communists, more disciplined, are simply pleading that as many of them as possible should be allowed to save their seats in the new parliament. Gone, as far as they are concerned, is the bluff and the bluster: they are no longer negotiating about a common programme or places in the Mitterrand government but simply trying to ensure that their representation in the next National Assembly should not, by gracious permission of the Socialists, be cut down too drastically. We are a far cry from the threats of yester-month that there would be strikes if they were excluded from office. In the aftermath of his humiliating defeat in the first round of the presidential elections, the Communist leader Georges Marchais explained his poor showing by claiming that many Communists had voted for Mitterrand because they feared that the final duel might be between Giscard and Chirac, leaving the Left unrepresented. It sounds plausible but it is phoney. In fact, the polls were showing a big drop in Communist support — not as big as in fact occurred— long before Chirac began to look like a challenger for second place. Now it looks as though the drop in the Communist vote is not only irreversible but that it will drop still further in next month's parliamentary elections.
The polls are predicting that their drop from their previous average of 20 per cent of the poll to 15 per cent this month will be followed by a further drop to only 13 per cent next month. This will almost certainly entail a heavy drop in their representation in the new Assembly, and it would not be too over-optimistic of the Socialists to look forward to capturing nearly half of their 86 seats. At this rate and on present calculations, the Socialists and their left-wing radical allies alone may have an overall majority in the new house without being in any way dependent on Communist support. True, the majority may be as little as six, but under a constitution which requires an absolute majority of all members present or absent to overthrow a government, a majority of six in the National Assembly is as good as sixty in the House of Commons. Pompidou, after all, when he was prime minister, had no difficulty in controlling an Assembly in which technically he was three short of an absolute majority. Furthermore, there is the distinct prospect that some left-wing Gaullists will go over to the government. A key role in bringing them over is destined to be played by Pompidou's former Foreign Minister, Michel Jobert, Kissinger's old bête noire and the man who as Secretary-General of the Elysee negotiated with Lord Soames Britain's entry into the Common Market.
Jobert supported Mitterrand for the presidency and is scheduled to get a ministerial post in the new government. To sum up, Mitterrand should be well placed after the Assembly elections to form a centre-left government from which the Communists will be excluded. On the Right and in the ranks of the new opposition, Chirac is having it all his own way, and there is something positively indecent in the way the Giscardiens have gone over to him bag and baggage, falling over themselves in their haste. It is a little sad to recall that in the course of the recent campaign, Giscard said that if Mitterrand won, then in six months' time he, Giscard, would be the most popular man in France. The most forgotten man is more likely. If anyone does survive in the public memory from the Giscard years, and does so with enhanced esteem, it will be his Prime Minister for the past four years, Raymond Barre. Already the mantle of a latterday Antoine Pinay, that symbol of stability and plain speaking of the post-war years, is settling upon him and fits -him well. If Mitterrand makes a mess of things, then it may be Barre rather than the regicide Chirac that the country will turn to. Meanwhile, in charity to the outgoing President, it should not be forgotten that in many respects he was punished more for his virtues than his vices.
The section of the Right which lost him the election by switching to Mitterrand in the second round represents a neoPoujadiste deeply reactionary force in French politics. It could not forgive Giscard his liberalism, and what lingered in its collective memory was not Bokassa's diamonds or the regal follies at the Elysee but the matter of Giscard shaking hands with prisoners and the legalisation of abortion. It is an electorate which ironically prefers the frankly Left to what it considers to be the phoney Right. It is a highly volatile force and, when it strikes, it strikes blindly and in rage. This leaves me hardly space to deal with Sir James Goldsmith's complicated affairs. Clearly his troubles with his French weekly l'Express foreshadow troubles in other sectors of the French media. There is, for example, Robert Hersant who owns the Figaro, France Soir, and Aurore and a chain of provincial newspapers. He is believed to have expanded his empire as a result of government-backed bank loans. Now that the backing will presumably be removed, will the loans be called in? Then again, Hersant is in breach of French law which forbids any one man to own more than one newspaper. Will he now be prosecuted?
Hersant and Goldsmith are said to have been negotiating over the sale of Figaro to the latter. Such a sale would almost certainly have been made conditional on Giscard winning the election.
As for the crisis on L'Express which arose over Goldsmith's sacking of an assistant editor and the resignation of the editor in protest, the mutiny among the rest of the staff is now being contained by a threat of closure. The crisis may flare up again if Raymond Aron, another associate editor and the paper's most distinguished contri butor, who is now recovering from an operation, decides to resign in his turn. Why did Goldsmith provoke the crisis over an unflattering cover picture of Giscard two weeks after the event? Possibly genuine indignation got the better of his judgment.
Possibly, however, the economic prospects for the publication are now such that he is tempted to seek an excuse to fold it.
Although it is fat with ads and is generally assumed to be profitable, in fact the publication's profit margin is slim because of over-staffing and extremely high over heads. As a result of Mitterrand's victory, it is generally believed that the overheads will grow and the advertising shrink. What is now a small profit will run into a big deficit. That is the projection for the future that L'Express accountants are making for it. Now, with staff troubles added to financial ones, the publication is in grave danger of extinction.
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