Local Affair

A test for Mitterrand

For weeks residents of the Mediterranean port of Nice have been enjoying striptease by billboard. It began last month, when large signs appeared displaying a bikini-clad blond against the Backdrop of the resort's famed beachfront. She pledged in large letters to TAKE IT OFF, and indeed in the next installment her top was gone. When, in the billboard's third version, the bathing beauty finally showed up in the altogether, the accompanying slogan read: AS PROMISED AFTER 21 MONTHS OF SOCIALISM, I'VE GOT NOTHING LEFT.

That political "expose" was the work of Nice's neo-Gaullist mayor, Jacques Medecin, who, like the rest of France's leading politicians, has been furiously campaigning for the municipal elections that will be held on March 6 and 13. The vote is a local affair to choose councilmen and mayors for the country's 36,400 municipalities, but it has assumed the dimensions of a national referendum on President Franc,ois Mitterrand's 21-month-old Socialist experiment. The Socialists and their Communist allies in the government are expected to lose anywhere from ten to 40 of the 154 municipalities they control among France's 219 cities with populations of more than 30,000.

Confident of gaining ground, the center-right opposition stepped up its attack last week. Neo-Gaullist Leader and Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac told supporters, who had gathered in a drab, working-class district of the capital, that the Socialists and Communists were "consummate artists when it comes to lying." Former Premier Raymond Barre blasted the government for the "cacophony" of its contradictory policies. Mitterrand remained above the fray, but Socialist First Secretary Lionel Jospin and Communist Boss Georges Marchais tried to drum up the loyal leftist vote in the suburban industrial "Red belt" around Paris. Marchais told a rally in Communist-controlled Villejuif, "The right is dangerous! We must throw all our forces into battle!"

At the heart of the election campaign is the Socialist economic record. The government began with a quixotic attempt to spend the country out of a recession. When inflation started to leap out of control, the government switched directions, clamping on a four-month wage and price freeze and then imposing an austerity program that limited wage increases and lowered unemployment benefits. One of the right's most damning accusations is that middle-class Frenchmen have suffered a net loss of purchasing power under the Socialists.

In defending the government's record, Premier Pierre Mauroy points out proudly that inflation has been brought down to 9.7%, the first single-digit rate since 1978. Mauroy can also justly claim that he has "stabilized" unemployment at about 2.1 million, or 8.9% of the work force, vs. 1.66 million, or 7.2%, under former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. But the cost has been considerable. The French franc has lost 32% of its value against the dollar since the Socialists were elected in May 1981. The foreign trade deficit has increased about 50%, to $12.7 billion, and the accumulated foreign debt rose to an estimated $37 billion at the end of 1982, compared with $25 billion in 1980. Giscard, who has been campaigning for local candidates, charges that this indebtedness represents an economic threat to French sovereignty.

Off-year political elections traditionally give French voters a chance to show discontent with the government without risking national political upheaval. Giscard has hinted that the government should respond to a serious setback in the municipal elections by dissolving parliament and seeking a new national mandate. But the former President did not do that when his coalition was trounced in the 1977 municipal elections, and there is every reason to believe that Mitterrand will respect that precedent no matter how poorly the left does next month. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.