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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1992-08-28
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WORLD, Page 47World NotesFRANCEMadame 19% Flunks Out
She did not govern quietly, and she did not go quietly.
Sharp-tongued Prime Minister Edith Cresson, 58, drew fire while
in office for having called the Japanese "ants" and saying that
one-quarter of Anglo-Saxon men are homosexuals. In her letter
of resignation, she complained that she had not been allowed to
"fully complete" her mission.
Only 10 months after President Francois Mitterrand made
her the first woman to hold France's second highest office, she
was forced to withdraw. Her resignation follows the ruling
Socialist Party's humiliating trouncing two weeks ago in
regional elections.
Cresson -- scorned at the end of her tenure as "Madame
19%" for her abysmal standing in the popularity polls and her
party's devastating election results -- had to take much of the
blame. Near record unemployment of 9.9% accounted for the rest.
Pierre Beregovoy, 66, the powerful Economics and Finance
Minister, who was named to succeed her, is expected to restore
some confidence in the party before parliamentary elections in
March 1993. The son of a Ukrainian immigrant and a member of the
Resistance during World War II, he is one of the few Socialist
leaders from a working-class background.
Beregovoy is a defender of a "strong franc" and fiscal
orthodoxy. He may also be the Socialists' last trump card.