French left alliance heals the breach

Scan page 2

Mitterand (left) and Marchais ility the CP and the Socialist Party would reach an electoral agreement between the first and second rounds of the election scheduled to take place on March 12 and March 19.

With opinion polls still indicating that a "Union of the Left" siate could win up to 54% of the total votes, Marchais is mollifying his seemingly aggressive stance vis-a-vis SP leader Mitterand in an attempt to carve out for himself and fellow CP leaders a niche within a possible "Union of the Left" government.

Dropped In line with this growing rapprochement, Marchais has now dropped his previous stance of refusing to partake in government if the CP received less than 21% of the vote.

His position is now that the CP would be prepared to accept ministerial appointments, but that these should be allocated in accordance with the votes cast for each party, rather than on the basis of seats won.

In a television interview last week Marchais was quite unambiguous about this:

*We want to participate in a government with the same rights and duties as our partner. We want a solid team behind a prime minister ready to apply the policies which the majority of people will ratify"

Such a Prime Minister would of course be Francois Mitterand; and the policies he will "apply" are none other than the Union of the Left's "common programme"

Exposed

The utter fraudulence of this programme's claims to be in the interests of the working class was perhaps best exposed last week when right wing President Giscard announced that he would not oppose the programme should the union win a majority.

Dubious role

Meanwhile Gaullist leader Jacques Chirac has been touring the country in a series of pre-election meetings, each of which has as its theme the dubious role played by Francois Mitterand while he was a government minister in the Fourth Republic.

Chirac's message is straightforward: Mitterand was weak and vacillating then; what is there to suggest that he wilf be any stronger now?

Ironically though, Chirac's verled calls for a 'strong' government and his resurrection of the past serve to show precisely what a sordid history Mitterand has. 'austerity' measures.

Virtually the whole of the political capital on which Andreotti is relying to float a new cabinet is provided courtesy of the Stalinists. which rubber-stamped the three main planks of the bureaucrat's economic platform: three years of wage freeze, speed-up and redundancies, and higher charges for public services. sections of workers.

Rigged But with his rigged vote in his pocket, Stalinist ( 'GIL leader Luciano Lama put paid thus lines up directly and explicitly with the employers, at the same time as it drops all pretence that the policy of 'sacrifices' will defend either wages or jobs.

But the Italian "social contract' is only part of the

----- pull-quotes -----

leader Georges Marchais has revealed that in all probab-