France Holding Most of the Cards

By Jordan Bonfante/Paris

In days of yore the defeated general would have handed over his sword and scabbard on the field of battle. In France last week, the vanquished paid homage to the victor during a tense nine-minute ceremony in a brocaded Louis XV-style study of the Elysee Palace, in which Jacques Chirac tendered his resignation as Premier to the adversary who had beaten him at the polls two days before: re-elected President Francois Mitterrand. Then Mitterrand got cracking. Over the next 48 hours he gave France a new Premier, moderate Socialist Michel Rocard; a new 26-member Cabinet that includes six non- Socialist independents; and a cautious start toward a new consensus-seeking & brand of politics. Pledged Rocard: "My commitment is to all those in France today who have anxieties about their future, their jobs and their safety -- no matter how they voted in the election."

To bolster Rocard's chances of eventual success, Mitterrand last weekend called a snap parliamentary election. In a televised statement, he announced that he was dissolving the National Assembly and summoning voters to the polls on June 5 and 12. His aim: to win Rocard a parliamentary majority. Rocard, 57, is a pragmatic self-described social democrat who launched an aborted challenge to Mitterrand's candidacy in 1981 and opposed the sweeping nationalizations that followed the Socialist victory that year. A former Agriculture Minister, Rocard has consistently emerged in opinion polls as one of France's most popular politicians.

Rocard's Cabinet, the Fifth Republic's first minority government, will stay in place during the short campaign. It includes many familiar Socialist heavyweights, among them Roland Dumas in his former post as Foreign Minister, Pierre Beregovoy as Finance Minister, Pierre Joxe as Interior Minister and Jack Lang as Culture Minister. The novelty is provided by a limited number of non-Socialists, including Centrist Senator Michel Durafour as Civil Service Minister, Supreme Court Jurist Pierre Arpaillange as Justice Minister and Businessman Roger Fauroux as Industry and Foreign Trade Minister. Last week senior Mitterrand aides telephoned eight members of the outgoing conservative Cabinet to sound them out about serving under Rocard. All refused. Mitterrand, however, believes that after new elections many centrists and even moderate conservatives will change their minds.

With that, the first stage of Mitterrand's plan to shift the country's political axis was in place. During the last five years of his seven-year first term, the President determinedly changed his own political color from radical to pragmatist. Now he wants a government that is still steered by Socialists but "open" to other, middle-of-the-road currents. In a second stage, the President wants to form a center-left coalition government composed of both Socialists and leading members of the current center-right parties that have been backing Chirac.

Mitterrand's 54%-to-46% win over Chirac was not just decisive, but daunting. It left him holding most of the cards -- including the ace-in-the-hole option of calling a snap parliamentary election. Polls show that the Socialists stand to win 37% in the new parliamentary vote. Under the current majority voting system, that translates to more than half of the 577 seats in the National Assembly. Accordingly, many old-line Socialists urged Mitterrand to capitalize on his momentum by holding a new vote that could overturn Chirac's 1986 parliamentary majority.

The presidential election put the defeated conservatives in disarray. The center-right Union for French Democracy (U.D.F.), which supported former Premier Raymond Barre in the first round of voting in April, found itself torn by new rivalries for the leadership and cowed by the tacit threat of a parliamentary election. Consequently, the U.D.F. was wrangling over what position it should take toward the new government. Outgoing Culture Minister Francois Leotard flatly criticized it, though he refrained from recommending a censure vote. Former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing spoke benignly of a "constructive opposition." Outgoing Transport Minister Pierre Mehaignerie and former European Parliament President Simone Veil hinted at possible support for a Socialist government in the future if its policies prove acceptable. Chirac's neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (R.P.R.) party found itself just as demoralized but at least united behind what Assembly Whip Pierre Messmer called "intelligent opposition," meaning a tough stand that will stop short of systematic naysaying. Chirac himself is still mayor of Paris but otherwise faces an uncertain future.

Only the far-right National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the other "winner" of the election, with a surprising 14.5% of the vote in the first round, declared full and outright opposition. Le Pen, who on election night pugnaciously called the rest of the political right "suicidal" and the "dumbest in the world" for refusing a pact with him, thrust himself forward as leader of the "national, popular opposition" and the "only real alternative to Socialist power."

Mainstream politicians on both sides quietly planned ways to cut the National Front down to size. Mitterrand told Socialist leaders that Le Pen's sizable following is a problem that the party must solve in the next three years. Chirac's Gaullists plan to run joint R.P.R.-U.D.F. tickets against Le Pen's candidates to magnify the disadvantage a small party like the National Front already faces under the majority voting system. "That way, in the parliamentary election, we can cut the National Front down from the 34 seats it has now to a mere handful," a Gaullist Deputy vowed angrily. "The National Front has made fools of us long enough. We have to kill it," he said, and made a slicing gesture across his throat.