Careerists, coalitionists and collaborators in Mitterand's 'new cabinet

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I GENNEL FOUR lees Pressure on Mitterand: workers on the march Unwarranted panic in the French Stock Exchange State, 25 Ministers and 12 Secretaries of State.

It has been designed to give an impression of stability and of having overcome all the problems of the previous period which afflicted the SP and threatened its unity.

It has tried to include the prominent leaders and representatives of each of the main currents of' opinion in the SP and to give a carefully balanced pattern of representation to the regions.

It also includes three representatives of the MRG (Mouvement Radical de Gauche), a bourgeois radical group.

It also includes Michel Jobert, a former Minister in the De Gaulle and Pompidou cabinets, and founder of the Mouvement des democrates which he set up in 1974 in an attempt to seize the leadership of at least a major section of the disorganised Gaullist movement.

His presence in the Mitterand/Mauroy team as Minister of Overseas Commerce is the clearest indication yet of Mitterand's intention to seek a growth in his support among , the bourgeoisle, in particular from the relics of the 'left' of the Gaullist movement.

The new Prime Minister, Pierre Mauroy, stands clearly on the right of the SP. A believer in 'day to day socialism' , he is the very model of the gradual reformist.

He is on record as emphasising that:

"Socialists will not change in one hundred days attitudes produced by a hundred years of capitalism"

In his view, therefore, the socialist programme must concern itself with the exploration of what is possible, and change can only come about after rejecting the illusion of revolution' He corresponds to a very important tradition in the French socialist movement as shown by his history.

Leader

He joined the Young Socialists of the SP's forerunner the SFIO at the age of 16, and rose to become its national secretary, a post he held for 9 years from 1949 to 1958.

For several years he was the leader of the union of technical instructors, within the independent teachers' federation, FEN.

He played an important part in the 1971 reconstruction of the SP and helped to bring Mitterand into the In recent years he has been much concerned with regional affairs, both as Mayor of Lille and as the architect of the alliance of the SP with the socialist current in the Corsican independence movement.

From 1974 he has been a strong ally of Mitterand's main right wing rival within the SP. Michel Rocard.

The representative of. the 'left' in the cabinet is Jean Pierre Chevenement, who takes up the portfolio of research and technology.

He is the acknowledged leader of the 'left' pressure group CERES (Centre d'etudes, de recherches et d'education socialistes) which he founded in 1966; two years after joining the SFIO.

Chevenement and CERES strongly supported Mitterand at the . Epinay Congress in 1971 against Mollet and Savary.

As National Secretary of the SP during 1971 and 1972 he was one of the principal negotiators of the 'Union of the Left' with the Communist Party and the Radicals, and the common programme.

Rightward shift

He adheres to the view that the failure of the Union and the defeat of March 1978 were due to the rightward shift on the part of the SP resulting from a growth in influence of 'middle class' white collar workers and not to the instability of the Communist Party in the face of its own crisis.

A cynical commentator Mauror would ascribe this view to Chevenement's exclusion from the SP leadership after 1975, but his left stance does not extend to any criticism of France's nuclear weaponry.

In fact within the SP he is one of the main proponents of support for an independent nuclear force.

Reconciled

Michel Rocard, the new Minister of State with responsibility for national planning, is the leader of the most important right wing current within the SP.

Beginning his political career in the SFIO he became national secretary of the Association des etudiants socialistes before leaving the SFIO to found the PSA, forerunner of the PSU. Having contested a series of elections as the PSU candidate, and taking a continuous role in its leadership, he was eventually reconciled to the SP in 1974, when he led a minority out of the PSU and into the SP.

He entered the national leadership of the SP in the following year. Durie the autumn of 1980 he proposed as a candidate for the presidency but stood down in November in favour of Mitterand.

He is one of the most determined opponents of the Communist Party within the French labour movement, and is widely regarded as a likely successor to Mitterand as the leader of the SP.

Of the other two Ministers of State, Gaston Defferre has always been regarded as a loyal supporter of Mitterand, and caused considerable surprise by his support for Rocard's candidacy in 1980.

Clearly he has managed a reconciliation to be given the important post of Minister of the interior and Decentralisation.

The other, Nicole Questiaux, a CERES member and former MEP, has been given the new post of Minister of National Solidarity' Cabinet The same pattern of carefully contrived political balance can be followed through the whole of the Cabinet. It would be tiresome to list all the Ministers and their histories and affiliations. A few examples will suffice.

(or.) km.... •itir Marchais Yvette Roudy, with responsibility for women's rights, represents an important link with various women's groups within the socialist movement.

Even within his allies in the MRG, Mitterand is careful to balance the odds. Maurice Faure, the new Minister of Justice is brought in as the representative of the more intransigent current which until 1967 stood out against the various moves towards involvement with the socialists and communists.

Evident right wingers among the ministers are Clarde Cheysson, who served as Giscard's , commissioner in Brussels (and incurred the wrath of the CP as a result), Jean-Pierre Cot, an open disciple of Rocard, and Charles Hernu, the new Minister of Defence who is a blatant militarist and founder of various groups promoting the interests of the military within the SP.

An interesting inclusion is Pierre Joxe, a self-styled "marxist" , Who takes his distance from the CEREgroup within the leadership, and devotes much of his energy to rebutting Rocard's market-oriented economic policies, going so far as to accuse him of being able to speak only in the language of the bosses.

Protest

He has also attacked Marchais and the CP over the Afghanistan question.

And there is another former leader of the SFIO and the SP, Alain Savary, who resigned from the Mollet government in 1956 in protest against the treatment of Algerian freedom fighter Ben Bella at the hands of the government.

The most obvious fact about the new government is that it does not include any representative of the PCF which certainly gave Mitterand many more votes than did the MRG.

In contrast to the period before the first round of the clection, when they were stridently demanding a guarantee ot ministerial positions the CP has reacted in a very subdued manner to its exclusion from the government.

The CP has announced its willingness to 'assume its responsibilities within a unified government' , but has so far not resumed its polemical attacks against the SP.

There is no doubt that there will be important discussions between the CP and the SP in the run up to the legislative elections due to be held on 14 and 21 June.

Disorder

Mitterand will be anxious to gain the maximum support from the members of the CP while giving their leaders the minimum of assurance about their role in any future government.

The internal disorder of the French CP cannot fail to help him greatly in this objective.

The defeated right wing parties, the RPR and the UDF will attempt to deprive the left of a workable majority in the new National Assembly.

in a rapidly assembled 'Union for à New Majority' they have carved up the 340 constituencies where they will work together to avoid splitting the right wing vote.

The UNM does not yet have the support of former President Giscard, (who is believed to be still considering launching his own liberal party), but it has rapidly gained the support of many prominent leaders of the outgoing government.

The early indications are that Mitterand is anxious to allay the fears of the French capitalist class rather than to take any kind of action against them.

ERNIE STUBBINS takes a look at the Cabinet chosen by Francois Mitterand following his election as President of PLAN O TRE ACIER Rapidly-convened talks 'with German Chancellor Schmidt have underlined his intention to maintain many aspects of Giscard's foreign and economic policy, particularly the Franco-German bloc to control the EEC.

Messages from Reagan look forward confidently to continued and improved military cooperation.

However, at least in the period up to the elections, Mitterand will be obliged to appear to make concessions to the working class.

The most important of these has already been made -the SMIC (statutory minimum wage) 18 to be increased by 10% from June Edmond Maire, leader of the CFDT trade union confederation, has called for the agreement of a timetable for the introduction of the 35 hour week in the nationalised industries.

•But he has been at pains to point out the limits imposed on the SP by its loyalty to the ruling class.

There is little doubt that the workers will demand far more than Mitterand will be prepared or able to grant, and that union leaders will play an important iole in limiting their struggles.

It is here that the Cr retains one of its most important levers of power, through its control of the CGT unions.

While it is unlikely that the CP will resolve its leadership crisis before the elections, in the early stages of the new government, the Stalinist leaders will be able to make considerable gains at the expense of the SP by overbidding the CFDT in wage and other claims.

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