As television lights glared, the survivors of the first round of France's presidential election faced each other last week in a 2-hr. 20-min. debate watched by some 30 million citizens. Billed as the high point of the electoral campaign, the duel between Socialist President Francois Mitterrand and Neo- Gaullist Premier Jacques Chirac produced no clear-cut winner. The dislike was almost palpable, however, between the two men who had been cohabiting, in French parlance, as government leaders for the past two years. During an exchange in which each candidate attempted to suggest that the other was soft on terrorism, Mitterrand flared up...
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