Victories for Giscard
Sam White
Paris The political landscape following the French general elections is becoming more and more to president Giscard's liking. In fact he might have painted the picture himself: a split Left, with the Socialists taking more and more their distance from their former Communist allies, and now a split Gaullist party —under the leadership ofJacques Chirac — suffering a humiliating defeat nn the very first day of the new legislature When their candidate for the President of the National Assembly, Edgar Faure, was roundly defeated by Jacques ChabanDelmas. It could not have worked out better or look more promising for the remaining three years of Giscard's term as President.
The full story of this week's battle for the Presidency of the National Assembly has Yet to be told, but what is already clear is that Jacques Chirac's tactical opportunism got the better of his strategic sense. First of all he was woefully misinformed as to the true motives that lay behind Jacques Chaban-Delmas's candidacy for the post. He saw it as a manoeuvre by the Elysee Palace, prompted by Giscard himself to Split the Gaullists by hoisting Chirac's old enemy though fellow-Gaullist to this prestigious perch.
In fact the Elysee had no hand in the Matter, and Chaban's motives for standing were entirely personal. He had been president twice before, but at a time when he was estranged from his late wife and could not marry his present one. For her to become chatelaine of the superb Palais de Lassais which goes with the job had an irresistible appeal for him — and for her. There was nothing more in it than that. However, having decided that there was an antiChirac conspiracy afoot he decided to oPpose the outgoing president Edgar Faure Who had enrolled in the Gaullist ranks only
few days earlier. The result was predictable — a split in the party; an easy win for Chaban and a major setback for Chirac — the first he has suffered in his longdrawn-out duel with the President of the Republic.
The political consequences of all this are going to be considerable and almost immediate. They will reflect themselves, for example, in the composition of the new Barre government. They will also threaten the future of the present coalition between Chiracians and Giscardians. For those who know Chirac best there is no doubt as to What his reaction to the setback will be. He Will tighten the discipline within his own Party and will seek to make life more difficult for the coalition and the government. Equally, on the other side, there will be the temptation to exploit this week's victory to the full and follow it up as quickly as possible with others. The Giscardians are in a strong position to do so since not only do they now almost match Chirac's forces in parliamentary strength but they will be from now on the effective dispensers of patronage.
There will be, and indeed there is already, the beginning of what de Gaulle in his rough barrack-room language used to call 'a rush for the soup'. Furthermore the parliamentary basis for Giscard's authority is likely to be broadened in the not so distant future, not only by defections from the Gaullists but by defections from the left. I am ready to take a bet now that in a year's time M Robert Fabre, the leader of the left radicals, will be a member of the government, perhaps as Minister for foreign affairs.
This is a much more appetising prospect for him than waiting for the mirage of a left victory in the presidential elections in three years' time. And there are others in the wings, too, among the Socialists. In short, Giscard is well on the way to fulfilling his ambition of governing with at least part of the left on his side.
Indeed, a step in that direction will be taken in the next few days, with the election of prominent Socialists to the presidency of some of the more important parliamentary commissions. And who can blame some of them if they are tempted? Look what a stony road lies ahead of them if they remain allied, at least for electoral purposes, to the Communists. The common programme on which the opposition's strategy was based for the past six years is now dead and so is the alliance with the Communists. All that remains is the bitter conviction, now spreading to the ranks of the Communists themselves, that for reasons yet to be fully unravelled the Communist leadership deliberately sought to bring about the left's defeat.
What is happening inside the Communist Party at the moment makes one rub one's eyes in disbelief. Dozens of party cells are passing motions criticising their leaders: first, for breaking the union with the Socialists, and then patching it up in the most cynical and implausible fashion at the last minute. Who knows but that once seemingly monolithic party functioning in strict accordance with Lenin's doctrine of 'democratic centralism' may be on its way to a schism of historic proportions.
The party leadership is already backing away cautiously, as though from a threatened conflagration. Georges Marchais has even gone on television to say that those who half-hope to be expelled from the party for expressing their views are in for a disappointment. 'The days of expulsions for holding critical views are over,' he said. Does that mean that democratic centralism will go the way of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as abandoned Communist doctrine? If it does, then of course it will be a sizeable piece of bait for some Socialists to bite on in the hope of renewing the left alliance. A lot of heads, however, will have to roll in the politbureau — including that of Marchais — before all but the truly starryeyed will trust the Communists again. Altogether the fall-out from the elections last March is beginning to look even more interesting than the elections themselves; and far more soothing to the nerves.
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