Word: mitterrand
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
...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...
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...