It’s Mitterrand Again

With Francois Mitterrand’s substantial victory Sunday, a Socialist president now represents the center in French politics. That statement, which would have been startling a decade ago, is true today not so much because the French center has moved but because the Socialists have. Gone are the moves to nationalize French industry. Present instead are words like unity and serenity.

It was clear at the beginning of the French presidential campaign that Mitterrand would win. What was not as clear was that his rival, Premier Jacques Chirac, would lose in such a big way. He lost because he reverted to form as an impulsive leader, intent more on the bold move than on the smart move. As Chirac was preparing Monday to resign in the wake of his defeat, Mitterrand was left to handle the worst of Chirac’s maneuvers--his deal to win the release of three French hostages. If French pride was at all boosted by that stunt, it came at the cost of strength and credibility in resisting terrorism.

Mitterrand must also confront a nasty element in French politics and French life--the phobia against immigrant workers. The surprise of the French election was not that Mitterrand won but that Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the far-right National Front, did as well as he did in the first round of presidential voting. The concerns of Le Pen’s followers that an alien element threatens jobs and safety aren’t going to go away. If Mitterrand truly wants to live up to his campaign slogan promoting French unity, he should tackle that question with the same skill that he showed in winning the election so handily.

For the moment, Mitterrand can bask in the cheers of his followers. He has done something that no French president in the Fifth Republic had ever done: be elected twice by the voters. Not even the larger-than-life Charles de Gaulle managed that; he was elected twice, but the first time was an indirect vote by special electors. In 1981 Mitterrand ended 23 years of conservative rule in France. His election Sunday ends two years of sharing governing with the conservatives.

French life, as the French want to live it, was not altered markedly by having a Socialist president. The Socialists were. Matured by power, they know now that one governs France; one does not change it. France does that itself, and then only by degrees.