Press: The Man Who Would Be King

Giscard's regime gets tough with critics of "the Monarch

When French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing took office in 1974, he promised to loosen the tight control that the Elysée Palace had maintained over French life, especially the press. Battle-weary French journalists looked forward to a new era of peaceful coexistence. As Finance Minister under President Georges Pompidou, the accessible Giscard had long been a favorite with reporters covering an otherwise chilly Elysée government. As President, he brought a refreshingly relaxed approach to the office, dining with workers' families and playing tennis. But after six years, a markedly different Giscard has emerged.

Where he once delighted in gunning his Citroen through Paris traffic to lose his police escort for the evening, Giscard is now nearly as distant and imperious as Louis XIV. He has, for instance, decreed that when he dines, no one except a head of state or Mme. Giscard may sit opposite him. The President, now openly referred to as "the Monarch," and his family are served before any of the guests.

His relationship with the press has shifted just as sharply. Giscard is considered a sure bet to win a second seven-year term in the presidential election next spring. Yet a relatively minor scandal has prompted the President to launch a war against journalists. They have responded with angry resistance, but the artillery at Giscard's command is formidable. The three French television channels and the national radio network are all state run. The government appoints their directors, who appoint their news editors, who make sure that little is broadcast that might displease Giscard. Lately the President has taken to referring to "my television," in the manner of Charles de Gaulle, who considered the French broadcasting industry to be his private preserve. Says French Press Law Expert Robert Badinter: "The President has very well understood that what is truly important in a modern state is control of the media."

Giscard has acted adroitly to increase that control. Besides appointing close associates to head the broadcast networks, he has helped Political Ally Robert Hersant get government-facilitated loans to acquire control of three Parisian newspapers, France-Soir, Le Figaro and L 'Aurore. Their combined circulation of 1.06 million makes "Citizen Hersant" the most important press magnate in France. Commercial publish must still depend on the state-run advertising agency Havas to help them contract for major advertising. Moreover, under Giscard, a bewildering catalogue of government subsidies for such publishing costs as paper, telephone and telex communications has drawn financially pressed newspapers into an ever closer dependency on the Palace. Says Roger Fressoz, editor of the outspoken satiric weekly Le Canard Enchaîné (circ. 640,000): "Everything was put in place so that the major media. . . are controlled by the President's men, who regulate carefully and severely all the wheels, leaving nothing to chance."