Mitterrand and his Govt on collision road

Press, 16 July 1986, Page 10

Mitterrand and his Govt on collision road

NZPA-Reuter Paris France’s Rightist Government is pressing ahead with plans to privatise 65 State-controlled companies despite a warning from the Socialist President, Francois Mitterrand, that he will refuse to sign the bill into law. Mr Mitterrand shattered his four-month truce with the Government of Jacques Chirac yesterday by announcing that he would not endorse any legislation that he believed was against the national interest But the Finance Minister, Mr Edouard Baliadur, replied that the Government had already taken account of all Mr Mitterrand’s objections and would present the text to him as planned for a Cabinet session this week.

The row over privatisa-

tion has presented the country with the first real test of an experiment in political “cohabitation” between Messrs Mitterrand and Chirac, which emerged from a Rightist victory in a parliamentary General Election on March 16.

Mr Chirac has kept silent. But political sources predicted that the difference would lead to a slowing of Government business, not a fatal rupture between the President and Prime Minister. Mr Mitterrand can in any case block the privatisation decree, which sets out conditions of sale for State companies, for only a limited time.

He has the right to refuse to sign decrees, but the Government can then adopt the slower process of a full Parliamentary debate, in which case Mr

Mitterrand would have no choice but to sign the bill into law. Several commentators saw Mr Mitterrand’s move as being connected with the prospect of a new Presidential election in two years, at which he is expected to seek a second seven-year term. By refusing to endorse the Chirac plans, the President could retain the confidence of the Leftist electorate, they suggested.

Since the election forced Mr Mitterrand to take a back seat in the running of home affairs, his popularity in opinion polls has shot up. Mr Chirac’s has slumped. The privatisations,. of banks, insurance companies, and industrial concerns, form the cornerstone of the Government’s plan to liberalise the French economy.