FRANCE: THE BIRTH OF POMPIDOULISM

IN the relaxed manner reserved for those far out in front, Ex-Premier Georges Pompidou last week nailed down the platform of post-De Gaullism that had won him an unexpectedly wide lead over his only remaining rival for the French presidency, Interim President Alain Poher. He announced that he would share some of his allotted television campaign with key supporters from the French political center, thereby inviting further defections from the already depleted opposition. He planned to visit six more cities across France, plainly hoping for a wide national mandate in the runoff election June 15. As if to help him gain it, the French Communist Party took the unprecedented step of ordering its followers to abstain from the voting altogether. If every Communist voter hewed to the party line, Pompidou was already assured of a majority. No Frenchman expected it to end quite that neatly, but as the campaign entered its final week, Georges Pompidou seemed almost certain to become the next President of France.

In the face of what political observers labeled "Pompidoulist" strength, however, Poher showed no inclination to retire from French politics as quickly --or as quietly--as he entered. "I became a candidate in the first place to avoid a confrontation between Gaullism and Communism, and I succeeded because I came in second," he explained. What is more, he intended to step up the fight, abandoning his earlier tactic of campaigning only by TV and press conference in favor of a jetliner tour of twelve cities in five days. His determination remained in spite of editorials in the prestigious Le Monde and Le Figaro urging him to withdraw and of desertions among his key backers. Poher himself indulged in few illusions about the outcome, hinting that his only goal was a strong second-place showing. "I'm an old engineer," he said, "and I know my mathematics."

Poher from Nowhere. The mathematics were all too clear. Pompidou captured 44.47% of the total vote in last week's Round 1 of balloting, just a shade behind De Gaulle's showing in his first-round presidential campaign in 1965, and he ran first in all but one of France's 95 metropolitan departments. Poher's 23.21% of the tally made him a distant second with barely half as many votes. Communist Jacques Duclos, who got only one-third as many votes as Poher in early campaign polls, finished up just two points behind him, and actually beat the Interim President in one out of every three departments.

Late polls forecast a slipping trend for Poher (the last ceded him 25%, v. 37% at his high point), but they certainly did not suggest that he would almost drop to third. They did indicate that France was taking a careful second look at the mild-mannered grandfather who appeared out of nowhere to unseat De Gaulle--and on reappraisal was having some doubts. What appeared at first as Poher's quiet strengths later turned out to be exasperating quirks. The man who refused to grandstand from his temporary quarters at the Elysee also refused to get out and campaign. The man most responsible for rousing France to vote no on De Gaulle's referendum seemed unwilling to indict the Gaullist era with facts and figures. The man who gave the presidency its first informality in eleven years also showed up on television peering at notes and occasionally flubbing a line. "Poher is a good man," remarked Deauville Mayor Michel d'Ornano, "but he still thinks one can solve the problems of the world over a cup of coffee."

Personal Triumph. Pompidou, meanwhile, seemed to be everywhere, and he neither used notes nor hesitated to draft indictments. He suggested that Poher, if elected, would have to battle an overwhelmingly Gaullist Assembly. By holding up this specter, Pompidou successfully managed to appeal to what Journalist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber calls France's "overriding concern" with stability. Not the least of his weapons was to mention the virtual necessity of Poher's calling new parliamentary elections should he win: having voted eleven times since De Gaulle came to power, France is tired of elections.

Still another factor was the remarkable popularity of Communist Jacques Duclos, a 72-year-old roly-poly extravert who looks as though he had never given up his youthful job as a patissier. Although he serves as the party's chief propagandist, Duclos wisely concentrated on giving Communism a friendly face and good one-liners--including the name of his dog, Pompon, after his favorite political opponent. Asked why his party disavowed the militant New Left, whom Frenchmen have nicknamed Gauchos, Duclos replied: "Gauchos, but they're American!" He seldom lost the chance to rumble mechanically against inhuman labor laws and big banks, but he performed best on the personal level, assuring listeners that, as a onetime Catholic, he "understands the spirit" of believers. Duclos was the first Communist ever to run for chief of state in popular elections. Though his success was primarily a personal triumph, he proved that the Communists' strength in legislative elections can translate into national contests--a discovery that could well increase their stature among other leftists. More important, Duclos' campaign was another step toward French Communism's overriding goal: respectability.

Nonetheless, Poher received a larger share of the vote than any other centrist candidate in a Fifth Republic election, and his determination to ride out the race could help re-establish the center as a French political force. In the long run, it was probably the non-Communist left that suffered the most irreparable damage in the election results. The socialist tandem of Gaston Defferre and Pierre Mendes-France polled only 5.01% of the vote. Although they tried to offer a positive program (scrapping of the nuclear force de frappe and cost-of-living wage increases) the socialist pair seemed to mirror too clearly all the outworn spirit of the tired socialist camp. As a result, they left the splintered socialists--who helped force De Gaulle into a humiliating runoff in 1965 and captured 16.5% of the vote last year--in worse shape than they have been in at any time since World War II.

Pompidou, on the other hand,' had proved once and for all that Gaullism is far larger than the length and shadow of a single man. Indeed, he had proved it so convincingly that some observers, including Le Monde's Hubert Beauve-Mery, wondered whether last week's election was not the beginning of a one-party state. That was undoubtedly a premature judgment, considering the Communists' solid showing. But there was little doubt that Pompidou had consolidated Gaullist strength. It was exactly the mandate he sought: a license for sure-handed change within the continuity of Gaullist institutions.

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