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from expressing its politics and to allow Mitterrand, for an un–
forseeable period, to profit from the situation the Communist Party
secured for the right from 1947 to 1981. As Andre Malraux said:
"Between us and the communists there is nothing." That is what
allowed the Gaullists to retain power. Mitterrand today can say in
the same way: "Between Le Pen and us, there is nothing." He can at
will provoke a dissolution of the government, reelect a socialist
assembly with a majority of four hundred deputies, and then govern
with the socialist party alone. He can, according to the custom,
"make an opening to the center," that is to say, retain the actual Na–
tional Assembly and receive a majority with the help of a few cen–
trists who are worried by the growth of the National Front. Since the
announcement of the results, one has seen on television the division
of the different groups , and even the different personalities , of the
former majority - the ones careful to attack Le Penism and to
associate themselves with their new president, the others affirming
their opposition. The U. D. F., the electoral assembly, no longer ex–
ists, and the dramatic collapse of Chirac puts even the leadership of
the R.P .R. into question.
For the moment, with the help of Le Pen (to whose party's ex–
istence Mitterrand has efficaciously contributed by establishing pro–
portional representation in 1986), the new President of the Republic
is the master of the political game . Will he reconstitute a moderate
right and finally give France the alternating government of great
democracies - of which the intellectuals still were dreaming a few
months ago? Or will he, for an unforseeable time , assure the
domination by the socialist party, with the help of a few centrists?
One hardly knows of any political men who have held the future of
democracy above their personal interest. On the day after the elec–
tion , the liberals , in the European sense of the term, who are be–
tween the two victors, Mitterrand and Le Pen, were not happy.
Translated from the French
by
Edith Kurzweil
