Mitterrand’s Bosnia <i> Geste</i> a Winner Back in France

Francois Mitterrand is 75 years old, physically frail and on the last legs of his long political career. His public approval rating has dipped below 35% in several polls. His governing Socialist Party faces probable defeat in parliamentary elections next spring.

But the French love a beau geste, especially when executed with style by one of their leaders for a righteous cause. So on Monday, the day after his gutsy, 6-hour trip to embattled Sarajevo, Mitterrand was given a hero’s welcome home, celebrated in the French press alongside such legends as Napoleon Bonaparte, Georges Clemenceau and Charles de Gaulle.

Even his bitterest enemies could not restrain their admiration for his one-man effort to reopen the Sarajevo airport for shipment of humanitarian aid to the besieged citizens of the Bosnia-Herzegovina capital, although some managed to blunt their praise with a tinge of sarcasm.

The newspaper Quotidien de Paris, closely affiliated with former President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, a longtime Mitterrand foe, dubbed Mitterrand “Father Teresa” for his surprise mission. Nevertheless, the newspaper, in a front-page editorial, described the trip as “courageous.”

But most reactions, from friend and foe alike, were unabashedly prideful. After witnessing shell-shocked residents of Sarajevo emerge from the rubble to shout “Vive la France!” as the diminutive Mitterrand walked their streets in a dark business suit, a television news reporter on the scene apologized to viewers for losing his objectivity--he was too overcome with emotion and admiration by what he had seen.

“The French are always susceptible to an act of valor,” wrote Alain Peyrefitte in a front-page editorial for the opposition newspaper Figaro. “Bonaparte at the bridge of Arcole (Italy), Clemenceau in the trenches, De Gaulle advancing under machine-gun fire toward the nave of Notre-Dame. . . .”

In fact, when French leader Clemenceau went into the trenches in 1917 to urge on his troops, he was older--76--than Mitterrand is today. The daring escapade earned Clemenceau the nickname “Father Victory.”

Mitterrand made the trip to Sarajevo despite warnings from U.N. forces on the ground that they could not guarantee his safety. As it was, two of the three aircraft that transported the presidential party were damaged. One of the two Dauphin helicopters was hit by gunfire, and the presidential Falcon jet was rammed by a ground vehicle whose driver was panicked by shooting.

On one occasion, Mitterrand was asked to put on a bulky, military-issue bulletproof jacket. On several occasions, he had to be helped into the armored personnel carriers that transported him around Sarajevo. Television cameras showed his companion on the trip, Health Minister Bernard Kouchner, actually lifting the president in his arms and placing him in the vehicle while another man cradled Mitterrand’s head to keep it from bumping against the door frame.

It was not the first time that the French president has undertaken a dangerous mission to make a political point. In 1983, he traveled to Beirut the day after terrorists attacked peacekeeping forces near the airport, killing 241 American and 58 French servicemen.

And Kouchner, founder of the international medical assistance program, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), is widely known for his willingness to travel to the most dangerous locales.

The Sarajevo trip, which Mitterrand kept secret ahead of time from all but his closest aides, may not be enough alone to resurrect his declining political image. Mitterrand, who turns 76 in September, has said he will not run again after his second term in office expires in 1995. But in the country where the revolutionary leader Georges Jacques Danton’s famous words were “Audacity, always audacity” and where one of its most revered literary heroes, Cyrano de Bergerac, was celebrated for his panache, it certainly can’t hurt.