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Even though Andreotti avoided what to Italians is "a crisis in the dark"—meaning the collapse of yet another unstable government with no alternative in sight—political tension mounted in the country. Some 150,000 disgruntled workers massed in Rome's Piazza San Giovanni (sometimes called "Red Square") to protest the government policy of wage curbs; an estimated 1.5 million Romans walked off their jobs, paralyzing the capital for a day.
More alarming was a continuing wave of violence, most of it the work of pistolwaving ultraleftists. In the past week alone, two policemen were murdered. Recent riots led by student ultras have been particularly embarrassing to the Communists, who control many of Italy's major cities and are committed to upholding law-and-order. The Communists have had to use force against the troublesome students, who are primarily protesting unemployment among the young. In Red-run Bologna, for instance, police in armored cars charged student strongholds. As a result, the traditional Communist-student alliance has been unraveling.
> French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing found himself rejected by both left and right in the second round of his country's municipal elections. Socialist and Communist candidates, who posted impressive gains in the first stage of voting (TIME, March 28), last week triumphed in more than two dozen additional cities with populations over 30,000, including Rennes, Nantes, Bourges, Le Mans and St.-Etienne. This gives the left control of 153 of France's 221 cities of that size. "It's double what we had aimed for," said jubilant Socialist Leader François Mitterrand. Almost as painful for Giscard was the election, as expected, of Gaullist Leader Jacques Chirac as mayor of Paris; the President's own candidate did not even win a seat on the capital's city council.
With national parliamentary elections just a year away, most political observers concede the leftists a better than even chance of gaining control of the National Assembly. To map a new political strategy, Giscard gathered his troops last week in a rare full session of the Council of Ministers. Reported one government aide: "It was a kind of mea culpa session. We admitted our errors." Some Cabinet members may be forced to pay for these errors with their seats, for a government shake-up is expected.
Stable Symbol. There were difficulties in other countries as well. The Social Democratic Party of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt—long a robust symbol of stability—was trounced in one of its traditional strongholds: voters in Hesse, angered in part by Bonn's hedging its promise to raise pensions, swept Christian Democratic candidates into office in every major city, including Frankfurt. In The Netherlands, Premier Joop den Uyl's Cabinet collapsed last week after the moderate Christian Democratic members of his coalition refused to endorse sweeping land expropriation measures proposed by Den Uyl and his Socialist Party. In Belgium, Christian Social Premier Leo Tindemans is similarly in trouble with his coalition partners.