France: The Future of Gaullism

Inching behind a snowplow in his beige Peugeot, French Premier Georges Pompidou trekked manfully through the hills of his native Auvergne, waving at the few hardy souls on the roads. Warmed by a coal heater, Catholic Centrist Jean Lecanuet stood on a sawdust floor in Murat and told 300 townsmen that the government had forgotten them. Socialist Leader François Mitterrand was in Ussel, holding forth on the evils of "caste and privilege" in a hall that stank of sweat and Gauloise Bleue cigarettes. And at Aubervilliers, Communist Waldeck Rochet denounced "social demagoguery"...

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