If the Left Wins

A novel's forecast: collapse

Paris, March 1978. A Socialist-Communist alliance wins control of France's National Assembly; crowds dance in the Place de la Concorde . . . President Valery Giscard d'Estaing reluctantly names Socialist Party Chief Franc,ois Mitterrand as France's Premier ... Communists get four of the 19 Cabinet posts, becoming the first party members to gain power in Western Europe since the 1940s . . . Transition appears smooth at first, but then . . .

That is the situation in the opening pages of a new novel published in France last week. Titled The 180 Days of Mitterrand, the book probes what will happen if the Socialist and Communist parties gain power in next March's parliamentary elections -- which is entirely possible. The work of a so far anonymous author, Days is an instant hit: its first printing of 50,000 copies sold out in a day. The novel says the book editor of the French newsmagazine L 'Express, is "a marvelous projection of the present that always remains on the edge of reality."

And, in Days' projection, reality is pretty grim. The left-wing coalition headed by Franc,ois Mitterrand, France's Socialist Party leader, and Georges Marchais, boss of the Communist Party, starts out in triumph. The coalition wins a comfortable 293 places in the 490-seat Assembly. But six months later, the new government collapses.

As President, Giscard, among other things, is chief of the armed forces and presides over the Cabinet. Elected in 1974, Giscard is aghast at the prospect of having to deal with left-wing ministers for the rest of his seven-year term. He urges Mitterrand to form a government that would include politicians who are not members of the leftist union. Mitterrand refuses, archly citing "a clear and precise contract" to carry out the left's common program--which calls for sweeping nationalization of private industry, big wage hikes and increased social benefits. Mitterrand, forming his Socialist-Communist Cabinet, appoints Communist Georges Marchais Minister of the Plan, a new post created to oversee the economy. President Jimmy Carter sends Andrew Young to Paris to find out what is going on.

For a while, things run smoothly enough. But then the regime's Socialist and Communist partners begin bickering. The Communists attack Mitterrand when he decides to refuse to nationalize a failing acetate firm, insisting that the party "has not come to power to close plants!" In turn, Mitterrand blasts the Communists as "demagogic and irresponsible."

As the split widens, the right moves into action. From "Radio-Lutece," a pirate station in city hall, Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, a staunch antiCommunist, makes an appeal to the nation to sabotage government policies. Confusion spreads. Rumors of a sugar shortage, concocted by conservatives hoping to scar the left, send housewives rushing to stores --thus making the shortage real. Giscard survives an assassination attempt. A right-wing general calls for "resistance" and goes underground. Militant ecologists, aroused over the government's commitment to nuclear weapons and power plants, kidnap the Defense Minister.

Then, in late September, Communist hard-liners revolt against Marchais and persuade the party to pull out of the government. Three days later, Giscard dissolves the Assembly; he calls for new elections. When Mitterrand refuses Giscard's request to stay on until the election as Premier, Giscard asks plaintively: "Are we condemned never to get along?" The novel's answer: any government in France with a conservative President and a left-wing Assembly is doomed to paralysis.

It will be a while before French voters can see whether that actually holds in the real world. But for those who want some other views on what the 1978 elections might bring, another novel, written his time by a well-known right-wing polemicist, is due out next week. Its title: The 100 Days of Mitterrand.

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