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Waldeck Rochet's tactics showed the remarkable transformation of what only a decade ago was Western Europe's most rigidly Stalinist party. Nevertheless, the Gaullists continued to hammer home to French voters that they have only two choices: De Gaulle or totalitarian Communism. "The danger is still there," warned Premier Georges Pompidou. "If the opportunity should present itself anew, the totalitarian party is ready to start again to seize power." Though this view was rejected by De Gaulle's opponents, it had an undisputed appeal to conservative Frenchmen, especially those in the provinces, who are shocked by the violence and economic paralysis that seized France—and suspicious of the Communists.
The other parties struggled desperately to carve out a middle position between Gaullists and Communists. Warning that a return to Gaullism would lead only to another crisis, Francois Mitterrand, leader of the non-Communist Federation of the Democratic Socialist Left, declared that only his party "offered a third road—a new alliance between socialism and liberty." In the rural areas, the federation has lost the support of many of its backers because it is linked in an electoral alliance with the Communists. In a jet-hopping tour across France, Centrist Leader Jacques Duhamel pleaded: "Let us not break France in two." His solution, of course, was a government of the center in which moderate factions from right and left could participate. The danger for the centrists was that French voters might feel that any vote not cast for one of the two major parties would be wasted.
Rabbit Stew. Seeking all the support he can muster, De Gaulle freed eleven imprisoned members of the old "French Algeria" Secret Army Organization (O.A.S.), including its old chief, General Raoul Salan, who was serving a life term. Taking advantage of De Gaulle's mood, one of his bitterest enemies returned to France. He was Georges Bidault, 68, a Fourth Republic Premier who fled the country in 1962 after being implicated in an O.A.S. plot to overthrow De Gaulle. Bidault, an extreme rightist, seemed unlikely to play a major role in the elections, but he indicated his willingness to stand for office and aimed withering criticism at Gaullism ("What is Gaullism without De Gaulle if it is not stew without a rabbit?").
French political experts were unaccustomedly wary about predicting what the election outcome might be. The present prospects are that the Communists will gain some seats in the National Assembly, but that the Gaullists and their Independent Republican allies will win—or come very close to winning—the working majority that De Gaulle so dearly desires. But in a few short, tumultuous weeks, most of the accepted premises of the Fifth Republic have been swept away, and no one can be sure what shape France may take by vote or violence.