FRANCE: Off and Running

Rocard enlivens the race

For 2 ½ years he has been stalking his prey, sometimes discreetly, sometimes unabashedly. Last week Michel Rocard finally made his ambitions official. From the town hall he occupies as mayor of the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, the compact (5 ft. 6 in.), crimson-cheeked economist formally declared that he was challenging François Mitterrand for the Socialist Party's nomination as its candidate against Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in the presidential election next May. Rocard gracefully suggested that Mitterrand, a veteran of more than three decades in French politics, could stay on as party leader. But the true meaning of...