France: The First Foray

Charles de Gaulle has yet to announce his candidacy, but any who doubted his intention of seeking a second term in this year's presidential election had only to watch him in action last week to change their minds. Sweeping out of Paris in the first major foray of the election year, le grand Charles was grandly in the running.

The setting could scarcely have been better for his purposes: four Western departments (Vendée, Maine-et-Loire, Mayenne and Sarthe), all warmly Gaullist, all heavily Catholic, all refreshingly rural. Sun and showers alternately splashed the...

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