French Chiefs Clash Over New Caledonia

President Francois Mitterrand and Premier Jacques Chirac, debating on national television 10 days before the French presidential election, bitterly accused each other Thursday of responsibility for the latest flare-up of violence in the South Pacific territory of New Caledonia.

While denouncing the killing of four gendarmes and the seizure of more than 20 others by Melanesian separatists there in recent days, Mitterrand said that it is still necessary to hold a dialogue with the Melanesians, who make up almost half the population of the archipelago.

But Mitterrand said that the conservative Chirac government “has chosen brutality and has chosen to ignore nearly half the people.” He cited Chirac policies of favoring the whites in New Caledonia as the root of the violence.

Chirac, in turn, insisted that the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front, whose members attacked the gendarmes, is a terrorist group that represents only a small fraction of the Kanaks, as the Melanesian people are known on the islands. The premier then lectured the Socialist president, saying: “If you had not systematically encouraged (the separatists) . . , we would not be where we are today.”

Chirac, 55, was combative and in a forceful mood during the debate, a stance that probably reflected his need to make up much ground before the May 8 election.

A poll published Thursday by the popular magazine Paris-Match reported that Mitterrand would defeat Chirac by 57% to 43%. In last Sunday’s first round of voting, Mitterrand finished first among nine candidates with 34.09% while Chirac finished second with 19.94%. The poll showed that Chirac is having a difficult time attracting all the votes of the two right wingers who finished third and fourth, moderate Raymond Barre and extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Scolds Chirac

For most of the evening, the 71-year-old Mitterrand was low-keyed against the aggressive rhetoric of Chirac. But well into the second hour of the debate, the president, angered by an accusation of Chirac about terrorism, turned on the premier and scolded him in withering tones.

The flare-up occurred after Chirac accused the president of releasing two members of the terrorist organization Direct Action from prison after he took office in 1981. The two were accused later of assassinating a military officer and the president of the government-owned Renault auto company.

“That is unworthy of you as a person and as a holder of your office,” Mitterrand said. Mitterrand said that the two Direct Action members had not been accused of any terrorist crime before their release, one by the courts, the other under the traditional amnesty granted by all new presidents in France.

Mitterrand went on, saying that Chirac himself, after informing the president last summer that an Iranian official, Wadhi Gordji, was implicated in a series of terrorist bombings in Paris in 1986, later decided to let Gordji leave the country and return to Iran. It is widely believed that Gordji was released as part of a deal with Iran that led to freedom for two French hostages held by a pro-Iranian Shia Muslim group in Beirut.

In reply, Chirac insisted that he had never told the president that there was a criminal case against Gordji. “Can you look me in the eyes and challenge that?” the premier asked.

“I look you in the eyes and challenge that,” Mitterrand said.

The New Caledonia issue is sure to take up much campaign time from now on. In New Caledonia, Bernard Pons, the minister of overseas territories, has called for the government to declare the Kanak Socialists an illegal party. Chirac has announced he will decide today whether to do so.

Under French law, however, the party cannot be declared illegal without the president’s approval. Asked about this, Mitterrand said only that if such a request were made to him, he would study it.