Mitterrand says he will quit

Press, 15 October 1986, Page 10

Mitterrand says he will quit

NZPA-ReuterCaylus, France France’s President, Francois Mitterrand, said yesterday he did not intend to stand for a second seven-year term in the next Presidential election, due in 1988. Mr Mitterrand, speaking after watching military manoeuvres in southwest France, did not categorically rule out changing his mind later, but said he did not expect to do so. The President, who will be 70 on October 26, has been urged by leading figures in the Socialist Party to stand again. “Each time I consider this problem, everything leads me to think that I will not be a candidate. I am not so ambitious as to want to install myself indefinitely,” he said. “All my thoughts lead me to say that I do not intend to stand. Will there be elements that intervene to make me say it is a mistake? I cannot think so,” Mr Mitterrand added. After his popularity slumped to record lows during the first five years of his term, Mr Mitterrand has climbed in the opinion polls since the March General Election which installed a Right-

wing Government and stripped him of most of his powers. Recent polls show he would be the strongest Left-wing candidate to defeat a conservative challenger such as the Gaullist Prime Minister, Mr Jacques Chirac. The only leading Socialist to have publicly declared his candidacy is a former Minister of Agriculture, Mr Michel Rocard, aged 56, who is shown by opinion polls to be France’s most popular politician, but is a minority figure in the party itself.