Mitterrand in No Hurry to Form Cabinet : Wants Time to Form Parliament Majority in Post-Election Chaos

President Francois Mitterrand made it clear Monday that he will not rush the delicate task of fashioning a parliamentary majority out of the most confused electoral results in recent French history.

Officials at the presidential palace said that Mitterrand does not intend to name a new Cabinet until the end of the month. That will give the president ample time to try to find suitable allies for his Socialist Party, which failed to win a majority in Sunday’s National Assembly election.

Following the French tradition of giving the president a free hand after every major election, Michel Rocard, the Socialist premier named only a month ago, planned to hand his resignation to Mitterrand at the weekly Cabinet meeting Wednesday. But officials said that Mitterrand, for parliamentary reasons, will not accept it until June 29, a week after the new National Assembly meets for the first time.

Much Bargaining

Many analysts feel sure that the president will reappoint Rocard. But a good deal of bargaining looms ahead, and expectations could change. The makeup of the new Cabinet will reflect any deals that are worked out in the next two weeks.

The political uncertainty dropped prices on the Paris stock exchange and decreased the relative value of the French franc. Stock prices had jumped a month ago when Mitterrand was reelected.

Most newspaper commentators interpreted the latest electoral results as a defeat for Mitterrand, who dissolved the assembly less than a week after his reelection. The voters, in the view of most analysts, did not want to give the Socialists a blank check in the assembly. But there also was a widespread feeling that the 71-year-old Mitterrand is politically astute enough to manage the complex situation.

Andre Fontaine, the editor of Le Monde, the influential Paris newspaper, described the returns as an embarrassment not only to Mitterrand but also to many politicians.

“All arrogance is from now on forbidden to all who govern us or aspire to do so,” he wrote in a front-page editorial. “No one can claim any longer to incarnate the will of the people.”

Most politicians and analysts had expected a massive Socialist victory, but the voters upset the predictions in a massive way.

The Socialists and their close allies won a plurality of 276 seats in the National Assembly. This represents a gain of more than 60 seats but is still 13 short of a majority.

Analysts Confounded

The conservatives, running as a coalition, confounded the analysts by winning a total of 271 seats yet losing control of the assembly.

The Communists won 27 seats and the far-right National Front, in a crushing defeat, salvaged only one seat. Two more seats will be decided when voting ends in French Polynesia on Sunday.

To put together a workable majority, Mitterrand will probably try to attract some centrists from the conservative coalition. The task, though arduous, is made somewhat easier by the loose nature of the coalition, made up of two groups, the right-wing Gaullist party known as the Rally for the Republic and the right-center confederation known as the Union for the French Democracy.

For the first time, the Union for the French Democracy won more seats in the assembly than the Gaullist party. That could make the union more tough in its dealings with Mitterrand.

But the union itself is a loose confederation that includes groups like the Christian Democrats and the followers of former Premier Raymond Barre, and it may be willing to trade support for posts in the Cabinet.

It is not likely, in the view of analysts, that Mitterrand will try to bring the Communists into the Cabinet. A Socialist-Communist government would hardly comply with a presidential campaign promise to run France with openness toward the center.

If all efforts to court the centrists fail, Mitterrand and Rocard could still try to run France with a minority government. The French constitution is weighted in favor of the executive.

An opposition can bring down a government only with a vote of censure by a majority in the National Assembly. Thus, a Socialist government could fall only if the conservatives and Communists joined to vote against it.