The Sorrow and the Pity

By Frederick Painton

Amid sagging polls, the Socialists gather to take stock

France's ruling Socialist Party assembled in the Burgundian town of Bourg-en-Bresse last weekend to assess, among other things, its alarmingly low standing with voters after two years in power. Few of the 2,600 delegates and other members present would dispute that the Socialists, along with their Communist allies in government, were disillusioning much of an electorate that had turned leftward in hope of change. Despite the free-flowing Beaujolais and steaming Lyons sausages served in a floodlit glow of camaraderie, the party's biennial congress was marked by a somber, even demoralized mood.

President Franc,ois Mitterrand was in Tunisia. As Chief of State, he does not attend such partisan occasions. But as architect of the party's unity and its 1981 electoral victory, Mitterrand dominated the proceedings anyway. His words boomed through the hall as his keynote speech was read aloud. His status as the Fifth Republic's first Socialist President elevated him to near-sainthood in the minds of many delegates. In the Socialists' time of adversity, Mitterrand indeed had become their major asset. Said Party Vice Secretary Jean Poperen: "In the end, after all, there is the President, again the President and always the President."

Even the President, however, is not immune to resentment of his government's economic austerity program, euphemistically called "rigor" by the Socialists. In its heady first year in office, the Mitterrand government enacted sweeping measures to nationalize key industries, create jobs and spend the country out of recession. The results: three formal devaluations of the franc in 17 months, a four-month freeze on wages and prices, hefty cutbacks in government spending, a 1% income tax surcharge and a 2,000-franc ($253) limit on the currency French travelers could take abroad. This was not the kind of change voters expected.

According to the latest polls, Mitterrand's personal-approval rating is lower than at almost any time since he took office: 52% disapprove of his performance and only 33% approve. No President of the 25-year-old Fifth Republic has ever been quite so unpopular. Since early 1982, moreover, local and regional elections have gone against the leftist majority. In nationwide municipal elections last spring, the two leftist parties lost control of 22 major cities as the conservative opposition took the edge in the popular vote, 53% to 47%.

The Socialists point out that local votes are different from national elections, in which party loyalty takes a stronger hold. But none of the delegates at Bourg-en-Bresse could deny the basic trend. Earlier this month, Communist Party Chief Georges Marchais publicly conceded that "unfortunately, it has to be recognized that the left has grown weaker. Disappointment, disillusion and at times discontent are on the increase among the men and women who assured its success in 1981." Even Premier Pierre Mauroy, the government's avuncular optimist, said that austerity "may somehow have caught the left off balance." The Socialists have difficulty drumming up public support for an economic squeeze that is ideologically and emotionally uncomfortable for most of them.

At the party congress, former Research and Industry Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, leader of one of the party's left-wing factions, called for a more radical, reflationary and protectionist economic course. Chevenement, who was forced to resign from his cabinet post this year after opposing austerity, claimed the support of close to 20% of the delegates. The consensus of the congress, following Mitterrand's lead, was that rigor had to be sustained for another year or more, but that ways must be found to ease the pain of economic sacrifice. Mitterrand and the party leadership were responding to pressure from trade unions and Socialist rank and file. Andre Bergeron, leader of Force Ouvriere, an independent but largely pro-Socialist labor confederation, warned that "the government has reached limits that cannot be exceeded without jeopardizing the social equilibrium."

Mitterrand's popularity appeared to be at a low point just as the austerity measures of his Finance Minister Jacques Delors were beginning to see results. Last year's trade deficit of $14 billion is dwindling rapidly, with this year's gap expected to be $7.5 billion. Delors will fall short of his goal of bringing inflation down to 8% this year, but the projected level, just above 9%, would be the lowest in France in ten years. Compared with inflation in the nation's major trading partners, especially West Germany, that level still is judged to be too high to avoid another devaluation of the frail franc.

These signs of hope on the economic front were of small help for the delegates at Bourg-en-Bresse. Said a Socialist Deputy from the southwest: "If I go into my rural district and tell my constituents that the foreign trade deficit has improved, they just look at me." Pocketbook concerns also overshadowed Mitterrand's assertive foreign policies, including the dispatch of troops to Chad and Lebanon, and the maintenance of firm support for the Atlantic Alliance. Such moves are quietly disapproved of by his Communist allies and by small factions of his own party, but endorsed by the majority.

The Socialists at least could take some consolation from the continuing division among the three leading opposition figures. Former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a conservative centrist, was sagging in the popular-opinion sweepstakes (with 8%). Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, a neo-Gaullist, was still in the lead but slipping (with 37%). Only former Finance Minister Raymond Barre, a champion of austerity himself, seemed to be gaining in popularity (up 5% in the past month, to 20%). For Mitterrand, who is waiting for the fruits of austerity to help the Socialists in parliamentary elections two years from now, that could be a good omen. As the President told the dispirited congress: "Better days will come!"

--By Frederick Painton.

Reported by Jordan Bonfante/Bourg-en-Bresse

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante/Bourg-en-Bresse This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.