FRANCE: A Schizophrenic Campaign

Despite center-right warnings, the voters still lean left

With elections only a month away, France's bleak wintry landscape was suddenly abloom with bright billboards last week. The most striking campaign poster was one showing a sturdy tree with a caption calling for CONFIDENCE IN BARRE. The tree referred to a celebrated comparison made by Premier Raymond Barre, who had likened his efforts to boost the French economy to nurturing a tree. "Obstinately but durably, the tree grows little by little," Barre assured French voters. On the other hand, Socialism and Communism blow in like a "typhoon," wreaking havoc in the whole forest.

According to the polls, however. many Frenchmen regard a leftist victory in the March parliamentary elections as a welcome breath of spring rather than a fearful typhoon. A survey appearing in the newsmagazine Le Point this week shows that 52% of the electorate would vote for the leftist parties as against 44% for the center-right. One top Gaullist leader even believes that the left might well reach 55% by election time. If that happens, Socialist Leader Francois Mitterrand would almost certainly become Premier—and France would face the possibility of having Communists in Cabinet posts for the first time in 30 years.

France's business community was showing signs of profound alarm at the prospect. Capital investment has come to a virtual standstill because of business worries about the sweeping nationalization programs advocated by the Socialists and Communists in their ill-named (the two parties still differ greatly as to the details) Common Program. Two weeks ago, the franc took a dizzying plunge on European money markets as a result of what Barre termed "psychological factors explained by political uncertainty."

Although the franc rallied last week, it continued its headlong flight abroad. Mitterrand claimed that 500 billion francs ($100 billion) have been illegally exported to Switzerland. Though the claim was exaggerated, more and more apprehensive citizens were getting their money out of the country or hoarding gold—the Frenchman's historical hedge against political uncertainty. Most popular were the one-kilo ingots (currently worth $5,738), which fit nicely under mattresses, and the small $62 Napoleon d'Or and minuscule $46 demi-Napoleon coins, which can be conveniently secreted—and transported —in the traditional sock. In the past month, bidding for gold has brought the price to a near record $188 per oz. on the Paris market.