Former Premier Michel Debre is such a listless political personality that a current joke says he was once seen riding in an empty limousine. He has a fussy manner and a flat, whining voice that somehow rub politicians and many other Frenchmen the wrong way, obscuring his considerable administrative talents. In Charles de Gaulle's electoral landslide last November, Debrethe dedicated Gaullist. major architect of the Fifth Republic's constitution, and the man who served a longer uninterrupted period as Premier (1,193 days) than any other in French parliamentary historywas ignominiously defeated in his own carefully cultivated rural constituency by a...
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