Four proud years ago, France's Socialist Party swept into power with a swaggering self-confidence that its ambitious programs for economic expansion and social welfare would usher in a new era of grandeur for the republic. Since then, however, the party has lost much of that self-assurance, as voters have become disillusioned by the country's lagging economy and by suspicions that the government of President Francois Mitterrand has been trying to cover up its involvement in the July sabotage sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, flagship of the antinuclear Greenpeace movement. Opinion polls show that the voters are turning away from the Socialists...
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