Word: centriste
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Inching behind a snowplow in his beige Peugeot, French Premier Georges Pompidou trekked manfully through the hills of his native Auvergne, waving at the few hardy souls on the roads. Warmed by a coal heater, Catholic Centrist Jean Lecanuet stood on a sawdust floor in Murat and told 300 townsmen that the government had forgotten them. Socialist Leader François Mitterrand was in Ussel, holding forth on the evils of "caste and privilege" in a hall that stank of sweat and Gauloise Bleue cigarettes. And at Aubervilliers, Communist Waldeck Rochet denounced "social demagoguery" in a suitably dingy gymnasium...
Europe of centuries past, a rebirth of the nationalist spirit that has brought tragedy to France and Europe." Even De Gaulle's first-ballot, right-wing opponent, Lawyer Tixier-Vignancour, joined the other three eliminated candidates in opposing De Gaulle. The most important of them, pro-Europe, Catholic Centrist Jean Lecanuet, could not quite go all the way to an endorsement of Mitterrand with his Communist backing, but he advised his 3,700,000 voters either to choose Mitterrand or abstain altogether from voting...
...needing more than 50% of the votes in a field of six to win a first-ballot reelection as President of France, Charles de Gaulle lost. Though he ran first in the field, he got only 44% of the votes cast. Leftist Francois Mitterrand polled a surprising 32%. Catholic Centrist Jean Lecanuet came from nowhere to win 16%, and the three other candidates garnered a total of 8%. The result forced De Gaulle into a runoff next week with Mitterrand-the most resounding and unexpected defeat for a Western political leader since Britain turned Winston Churchill out of office...
Toothsome Telegenicity. Center Candidate lean Lecanuet, 45, drew his support from Centrist De Gaulle himself-and thus was decisive in forcing the runoff. His well-organized advertising campaign depicted him as the youthful symbol of France's future, a kind of French Kennedy ("John Fitzgerald Lecanuet," sneered the Gaullists). His toothsome telegenicity seemed to grow with each appearance on television, though he began the campaign a virtually unknown Senator. His theme was vive the Common Market, vive united Europe, vive NATO. It won the rare endorsement of "Mr. Europe" himself, Jean Monnet...
...Thinks for France? For the runoff, Mitterrand has become "the candidate of the Republic" instead of "the candidate of the left," hoping to collect some of Lecanuet's centrist bloc of votes. Lecanuet, eliminated but suddenly a national figure, has announced the formation of a new "democratic center" party, which might well provide some day the apres-Gaullism alternative...