Word: gaullists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...return of a conservative majority. The Socialists, who initially expected a landslide victory on the strength of Mitterrand's electoral momentum, faltered in the first round of balloting on June 5. The party won only 37.5% of the vote, compared with 40.5% for the conservative alliance comprising the neo-Gaullist Rassemblement pour la Republique and the center-right Union pour la Democratie Francaise. The Communists, written off after their 6.8% score in the presidential race, bounced back to 11.3%. At the other extreme, the ultra- right, anti-immigrant National Front slipped from...
...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...
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...
...lights glared, the survivors of the first round of France's presidential election faced each other last week in a 2-hr. 20-min. debate watched by some 30 million citizens. Billed as the high point of the electoral campaign, the duel between Socialist President Francois Mitterrand and Neo- Gaullist Premier Jacques Chirac produced no clear-cut winner. The dislike was almost palpable, however, between the two men who had been cohabiting, in French parlance, as government leaders for the past two years. During an exchange in which each candidate attempted to suggest that the other was soft on terrorism...
...Barre was not the only candidate to try. In a campaign that has heavily emphasized style over substance, Gaullist imagery cropped up often enough, as it has in past contests, to give an eerie ring of arrived truth to Charles de Gaulle's imperious prophecy that "every Frenchman was, is or one day will be a Gaullist." Mitterrand, an opponent of De Gaulle for the ten years of the general's presidency, also presented himself as an above-the-fray candidate, rarely mentioning the word Socialist and allowing himself to be described by Socialist Party Chairman Lionel Jospin...