Enter the tricolour Tories

FRANCE MARC ULLMANN

Paris—Following the outcome of Sunday's first ballot in the French Presidential elec- tions, M Georges Pompidou is established as clear favourite to win the succession to General de Gaulle on 15 June. Yet he could still be beaten. He could be beaten above all, if some of his leading supporters sound so confident of the outcome that they encourage a lot of those who voted for him last week-end to go off fishing in a fort- night's time.

And M Pompidou knows it. Shortly be- fore midnight on Sunday evening the former Prime Minister left his flat over- looking the river on the left bank to drive to his office beside the Eiffel Tower. Once he got there, and the full pattern of Sunday's voting became known, he was very careful to avoid crowing victory. Not so some of his lieutenants. Thus M Couve de Murville, the current Prime Minister, demonstrated yet again that in political affairs he is a rank amateur. 'It is evident', he announced magisterially, 'that the elec- tion of M Pompidou is now assured.' And then, as if one blunder was not enough for one evening, the election of M Pompidou', he found it necessary to add, 'will enable the nation to pursue the course on which it is embarked.'

Now to pursue the course on which we are embarked is just what M Pompidou has promised not to do. The heir to Gaullism, he has sought throughout his campaign also to become identified as the champion of change. And to a large extent he has succeeded. The electors have come to place confidence in his ability to bring the policies of General de Gaulle down to earth.

Indeed the General himself seemed to recognise the need. Following the first, inconclusive ballot of the 1965 election, he placed the emphasis in his television broad- casts on salaries, housing, the building of motorways, and so on. But once elected he reverted to type, and foreign policy reverted to the head of his priorities. For in his eyes the prosperity of France was no doubt necessary, but it was not an end in itself: rather, it was a means of lending credibility to his actions in the wider world. The accumulation of gold, essentially a diplem- atic weapon, was to him more vital than the creation of more tangible forms of wealth.

So throughout the first three weeks of the present Presidential election campaign M Pompidou was faithful to the Gaullist philosophy. But it was the Gaullist philosophy of the 1965 campaign, rather than that which the General himself has applied these past four years. M Pompidou's great asset is that he has managed to con- vince the electors that he, at least, will keep his promises.

It has been hard work, and M Pompidou has not spared himself. Disregarding the advice of several members of his own entourage, he has gone carefully into the details of the pledges given and their costs, and in particular their impact on the fiscal system. Paradoxically the challenge he has had to face from a serious rival, interim President M Alain Poher, has probably helped him. For it has enabled him to con- vince the more traditionalist Gaullists that changes are essential, and that a failure to promise them would court defeat.

M Poher has suffered accordingly. The more the Pompidou programme came to look like his own, the more people were inclined to say to themselves that if both candidates had the same ideas it was only commonsense to choose the one who had a ready-made parliamentary majority to work with.

For whatever happens in the run-off on 15 June, it is now generally agreed that the Gaullist party is not going to break up. Obviously the contingency does not -*rise if M Pompidou wins through. What matters is that it is not expected to arise even if he fails.

Why? Quite simply because the Com- munist candidate, M Jacques Duclos, attracted more than 21 per cent of the votes cast last Sunday and ran M Poher very close for second place. This means that those Gaullist deputies who might have been prepared to make common cause with M Poher in order to save their own seats have had second thoughts. As one of them puts it 'if M Poher were to be elected and then to dissolve Parliament, a solid group of Gaullist deputies under M Pompidou's leadership would look like the only effective alternative to the Communist; and as a result we should not lose the elections after all.'

This is a vitally important conclusion to be drawn from the results of Sunday's vote. It has far-reaching implications for France's political future. Up to Sunday it W3S possible to envisage a return to the pattern of the Third and Fourth Republics, with governmental majorities fluctuating from side to side across the centre of the political spectrum, but with the Communists and the right wing permanently excluded. Now we know better. France at last has a Tory party.

The only remaining imponderable is what is to happen to the left. Either it will have to get together so that France can for he first time experience a two-party system, or else there will be no evolution in the Communist ranks, and then we shall nave an Italian situation. In Italy there is the one great governmental phalanx, the Demo- Christians, which attaches to itself from time to time, and according to the fluctua- tions in electoral fortunes, some of the small and scattered fractions of the non- Communist left.

For obviously, with more than double the votes of the non-Communist left, M DUCIJS and his comrades were the second victors of Sunday's vote. No doubt they benefited from the two-ballot system, which enables people to express their ideological loyalties first time round. They benefited also from the personality of their candidate. In truth at seventy-two years of age M Jacques Duclos outclassed the rest of the field. He was the only candidate with oratorical style, and he showed himself witty, jovial and acute. On top of this the party can s-ill produce a first class organisation, which enables it to hold impressive meetings in every French provincial town of any sig- nificance.

In this respect, incidentally, it is evident that television has been far less important than most people thought it would be. The two candidates who made real progress throughout the campaign were the two who stumped the country: Messrs Pompidou and Duclos. Those who stayed at home and polished up their political commercial for the small screen suffered accordingly.

This is not really so surprising. In order to hold big public meetings in the provinces you have got to get your local machine into top gear. The local press and television have something to get their teeth into, and as a result the candidate comes over not as some abstract personality who hands down his opinions from on high, but as a human being in touch with the electors. Besides the presence of a visiting notability obliges the local worthies in the town to take sides. This last consideration undoubtedly greatly benefited M Pompidou at the expanse of M Poher. Whenever the former Prime Minister arrived in a town the organ- isers of the public meeting arranged for hitt invited the local bigwigs to take their places on the platform. There was no way uf avoiding this one: either they accepted, or they refused. Thus, for example, When Pompidou arrived in Strasburg, where most of the city bosses are friends of M Poher's, they hesitated as to what to do. But in the end they were there. 'If M Poher comes, one of them pointed out `we shall do the same for him.' Precisely. But he didn't.

M Poher has now announced that tie intends to put this right. He is planning a rough, barnstorming campaign, with a double motif. First, he will say that it is not enough to bend the policies of General de Gaulle: they must be reversed. And second, he will say that M Pompidou's appeals ior stability amount to blackmail and are ;.,bn- trary to the spirit of the Constitution.

'Direct election of the President by universal suffrage', he will remind us, 'was a Gaullist idea. They cannot now stand it on its head and assert the supremacy of Parliament, and its right to oppose the man the people send to the Elysee Palace'.

All well and good. But M Pompidou can smoothly reply that it is, after all, easier to govern with a parliamentary majority than without one. 'M Poher', he argues, 'doesn't know where he is going, with whom he Will run the country, or on what sort of majority he will rely'.

Above all, of course, M Pompidou has the overriding advantage of only needing a small heave to put him over the top. M Poher has got to try and appeal to the Com- munist voters over the heads of their leaders, who have told them to abstain on 15 June. M Pompidou can happily Izave them to do as they have been advised, and stay at home.

The destiny of the Communist votes is in fact the only remaining unknown element in

the equation. Most of the Communist voters are anti-Gaullist. But they are no rribre impressed by M Poher's 'third force' either.

Hence the party's decision to boycott the second round 'between a couple of Dour- geois candidates'.

So M Poher faces an uphill battle. Indeed the going looks so rough that some (Allis

supporters have been -telling him to stand down (as he is free to do, constitutionaily, any time up to Thursday night) and leave

M Pompidou to slog it out with M Duclos, thereby assuring him a massive victory. M Poher will have none of it. The whole pur- pose of our campaign', one of his staff has pointed out is to prove that there is a political grouping between the Gaullists arid the Communists which is capable of govern- ing the country. To desist now would be a betrayal of all we stand for.' To which M Roger Frey, the leading parliamentiry tactician on the other side has replied 'how does M Poher set himself up as the candi- date of national unity with less than a quarter of the votes?'

In just three weeks hope has changed sides.