Mitterrand Offers Job of French Premier to Chirac; They Disagree on Conditions

Socialist President Francois Mitterrand on Tuesday asked right-wing rival Jacques Chirac to serve as premier of France, but Chirac withheld a reply after the two obviously failed to work out acceptable conditions for governing the country together.

The impasse illustrated the potential for conflict in the beginning of a new era in the French political system. A right-wing victory in parliamentary elections Sunday ensured that France, for the first time since President Charles de Gaulle and his aides rewrote the constitution in 1958, will have a president and premier of opposing ideologies.

After a meeting of two hours and 15 minutes, Chirac, the mayor of Paris, a former premier and an opponent of Mitterrand in the 1981 presidential elections, said that he will give his reply to the president “as soon as possible.”

In following the election returns and adhering to French tradition, Mitterrand called Chirac, the leader of the largest party in the victorious conservative coalition, to the Elysee Palace, the French White House, in late afternoon.

Identically Worded Statements

Terse, identically worded statements were read separately by Jean-Louis Bianco, the president’s chief of staff, and later by Chirac. They said that the conservative leader had been called “to review the subject of the formation of a government.”

This was accepted by the French press as a euphemism for an announcement that the president has asked Chirac to form a government as premier.

According to television news reports, their negotiations broke down on two issues in their apparent attempts to stake out the extent of their powers for the final two years of Mitterrand’s term of office.

One was, according to the reports, Chirac’s insistence on the right to implement the platform of his conservative coalition by decree. But Mitterrand said he will invoke his constitutional power to refuse to sign these decrees, effectively vetoing them.

Coalition Partners to Meet

The other issue, the reports said, was Mitterrand’s and Chirac’s failure to agree on a new cabinet. Under the French constitution, the premier recommends the cabinet members for appointment by the president. This gives the president a veto over the premier’s choices.

Aides to Chirac said that he will meet today with leaders of his Rally for the Republic and of his coalition partner, the Union for the French Democracy, led by former President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, before deciding how to reply to Mitterrand.

It was not clear whether Mitterrand or Chirac had stronger cards to play in their evident test of political wills. Mitterrand’s Socialist Party lost control of the National Assembly in Sunday’s elections. But the Chirac-Giscard d’Estaing coalition failed to win a majority by itself and will have a bare majority only with the help of independent rightists.

The exact majority will not be known until the independents make their position clear, but it will not be any larger than four and could be as small as one.

With so thin a majority, Chirac might have a difficult time pushing the coalition’s policies through the National Assembly. In line with the doctrines of President Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, those policies promise to lift price controls, eliminate a tax on wealth, reduce public spending, ease restrictions on firing workers, promote a generally liberal economy and sell some of the nationalized banks and industries.

The anticipated difficulty of controlling the assembly may explain the reported demand by Chirac that he be allowed to implement the platform by decree.

In asking Chirac to serve as premier, Mitterrand chose the first choice of the conservatives themselves. The 53-year-old Chirac, who has been the mayor of Paris since 1977, obviously has his eyes on a race for the presidency when Mitterrand’s term ends in 1988. Many political analysts believe that he needs the exposure of the premiership to build up his popularity.

An aggressive, efficient administrator, Chirac has long left both politicians and the public with mixed views of him. He has shifted political alliances often. A recent poll showed that while many French regard him as sympathetic, dynamic and capable, many others look on him as authoritarian and pretentious.