France the Troubles Of Cohabitation

Mitterrand and Chirac are pedaling in opposite directions

Bastille Day is traditionally a day for the French to put aside their % differences. But no sooner had Socialist President Francois Mitterrand and conservative Premier Jacques Chirac finished their review of the military parade at the Place de la Concorde last week than Mitterrand issued the sharpest challenge yet to the conservative government with which he has uneasily shared power since March.

At issue was the Chirac Cabinet's proposed decree calling for the gradual denationalization of 65 large, state-owned companies and banks, including the Elf Aquitaine oil trust, the Banque Nationale de Paris, the country's largest, and the telecommunications giant...

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