Onward and Backward from Gaullism

PARIS-The election of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing as President of the Republic for seven years ushers France—and Western Europe—decisively into a new period not so very different at first sight from the be-tween-the-wars period of the Twenties and Thirties. Giscard’s victory may have been narrow. But gone is Gaullism, for better or worse, with the sudden death of Pompidou (sudden for our time, when statesmen usually give up before they reach a state which prevents them even from attending càbi-net meetings) ; gone is the France that was the enfant terrible of the world stage; and back are the preoccupations of the post-Depression years—wage scales, social peace, and guaranteed European investment. If we needed anything further to set our sights straight, across the Rhine Helmut Schmidt, another finance man, now rules in Bonn.

General de Gaulle’s doctrine of Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals” suited his quasi-imperial progresses, to what he considered the satisfying discomfiture of the State Department, among others. Giscard is a Gaullist in that he profited fully from the General’s authority to prosecute his financial designs, which are aimed at restoring the strength of the franc and at bringing back on a wide scale those “signes extérieurs de richesse” so beloved by the French tax collectors. Giscard was not a dyed-in-the-wool Gaullist in the blind or historical sense. He even preferred to keep his distance from the Gaullists as a party by leading a group known as the Independent Republicans, a title which seems to keep a reassuring foot in the Fourth Republic through a supposed collection of small town lawyers, country doctors, and all kinds of warhorse Fourth Republic politicians who if they did not end up being known as “papa” could at least claim to be over 80 years old. Giscard himself, being relatively young,, has the glamor and even the dash to keep regime appearances rolling. He is photographed at shoots at a large chateaux, and once rode the métro in Paris dressed only in a sweater and pants to show what an informal figure he actually is. But it will be on-his financial acumen and experience—he was Finance Minister for many Gaullist years —that his performance will be judged. The development of the Common Market has brought greater prosperity and stability to France, but much of it was won by insistent table-banging on the part of the old General. Now Britain is in the Common Market too—and Britain is another country with some imperial hangovers. It will be very much harder for French business, and in particular French agriculture, to rule the roost.

NK

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Nicholas King

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Presidential Election

PARIS-The election of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing as President of the Republic for seven years ushers France—and Western Europe—decisively into a new period not so very different at first sight from the be-tween-the-wars period of the Twenties and Thirties. Giscard’s victory may have been narrow. But gone is Gaullism, for better or worse, with the sudden death of Pompidou (sudden for our time, when statesmen usually give up before they reach a state which prevents them even from attending càbi-net meetings) ; gone is the France that was the enfant terrible of the world stage; and back are the preoccupations of the post-Depression years—wage scales, social peace, and guaranteed European investment. If we needed anything further to set our sights straight, across the Rhine Helmut Schmidt, another finance man, now rules in Bonn.

General de Gaulle’s doctrine of Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals” suited his quasi-imperial progresses, to what he considered the satisfying discomfiture of the State Department, among others. Giscard is a Gaullist in that he profited fully from the General’s authority to prosecute his financial designs, which are aimed at restoring the strength of the franc and at bringing back on a wide scale those “signes extérieurs de richesse” so beloved by the French tax collectors. Giscard was not a dyed-in-the-wool Gaullist in the blind or historical sense. He even preferred to keep his distance from the Gaullists as a party by leading a group known as the Independent Republicans, a title which seems to keep a reassuring foot in the Fourth Republic through a supposed collection of small town lawyers, country doctors, and all kinds of warhorse Fourth Republic politicians who if they did not end up being known as “papa” could at least claim to be over 80 years old. Giscard himself, being relatively young,, has the glamor and even the dash to keep regime appearances rolling. He is photographed at shoots at a large chateaux, and once rode the métro in Paris dressed only in a sweater and pants to show what an informal figure he actually is. But it will be on-his financial acumen and experience—he was Finance Minister for many Gaullist years —that his performance will be judged. The development of the Common Market has brought greater prosperity and stability to France, but much of it was won by insistent table-banging on the part of the old General. Now Britain is in the Common Market too—and Britain is another country with some imperial hangovers. It will be very much harder for French business, and in particular French agriculture, to rule the roost.