France: A Campaign Catches Fire

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The other two major candidates were quick to pass judgment on the Giscard-Mitterrand crossfire, and both took aim at Giscard. Paris Mayor Chirac, leader of the Gaullist wing of Giscard's own center-right coalition, accused Giscard's defenders of being antidemocratic for trying to portray Mitterrand's dissenting view of Giscard's foreign policy as an attack on the honor of France. Marchais, meanwhile, criticized Mitterrand for going too easy on Giscard. "The only reproach Mitterrand makes is that Giscard is not sufficiently anti-Soviet," he snapped with characteristic bluntness.

The furor had barely begun to subside when Giscard suddenly came under fire from another quarter. Le Canard Enchainé, the Paris weekly that had accused the President in 1979 of accepting a small fortune in diamonds from deposed Central African Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa, published new evidence casting serious doubt on Giscard's latest explanation of the affair. In his television appearance, Giscard had seemed to put the bizarre matter to rest by explaining that he had received nothing more from Bokassa than had been offered other heads of state. The diamonds were not "large stones having great value." He said he had deposited them for safekeeping in the Elysée until Bokassa's overthrow, then had sold them and delivered the proceeds to several — Central African charities, including the Red Cross.

Le Canard published a cable | from a Red Cross representative | in the Central African Republic | named Ruth Rolland: "I have received no gift from the President of the French Republic." The Elysée nervously countered that the money had been sent a month ago, on Feb. 4, not some 18 months ago, as Giscard had suggested on television. Moreover, Giscard aides explained, the money had not been sent directly to the charities, but rather to the Central African government of David Dacko, Bokassa's successor. Dacko confirmed the receipt of the money earmarked for the Red Cross, then revealed the amount: $8,000. Paris jewelers quickly noted that a single-carat diamond of good quality was worth as much.

Giscard also had to contend with the publication this week of a book that the French public has long expected might tell all about the diamonds and Giscard's relations with Bokassa. Manipulation, by Roger Delpey, is anticlimactic, but it does contradict Giscard's account in some respects.

Delpey alleges that one batch of 36 top-grade gems was given to Giscard while he was still Finance Minister, and thus it would have been unusual to have stored them with other state gifts in the Elysée. He also claims that Bokassa gave some 200 stones to Giscard over the years, which would presumably be worth far more than $8,000. Delpey's disclosures will hardly make Giscard's campaign any easier. With seven weeks to go, the latest polls show Giscard and Mitterrand running neck and neck. —ByRuss Hoyle.

Reported by Sandra Burton/Paris