France: Confrontations with Reality

Three years of socialism produce a question: "What now?"

Tax-hungry Finance Minister Jacques Delors swoops down from a helicopter to collect the franc used in the coin toss of a soccer match. Intent on projecting French military power abroad. Defense Minister Charles Hernu leads an attack against the tiny principality of Monaco: "Ack-ack-ack!" President Francois Mitterrand interrupts his compulsive globetrotting for a rare visit to Paris and, shuddering at what he finds, hightails away again.

In Socialist heaven, meanwhile, the cherubs are busily filling out their income tax returns when two horned devils...

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