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- <text id=93TT1104>
- <title>
- Mar. 08, 1993: A French Big Bang
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Mar. 08, 1993 The Search for the Tower Bomber
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 19
- WORLD
- A French Big Bang
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Rocard calls for a new political constellation to replace the
- Socialists
- </p>
- <p> Rarely has a campaign speech set off such a powerful detonation.
- Addressing a Socialist rally in Montlouis-sur-Loire in mid-February,
- ex-Prime Minister Michel Rocard called for a "political big
- bang" that would replace France's outmoded right-left political
- structures with a broad coalition of "progressive" forces, ranging
- from reform-minded communists and Socialists to ecologists,
- centrists and human-rights activists. Rocard was pronouncing
- the death of President Francois Mitterrand's scandal-tarnished
- Socialist Party, which faces almost sure defeat in this month's
- parliamentary elections, and laying the groundwork for his own
- 1995 presidential bid. Mitterrand, of course, has dismissed
- the idea. But other Socialists and independents are reacting
- positively. On Wednesday, Brice Lalonde, head of one of the
- country's two ecologist parties, voiced interest in joining
- Rocard's grand scheme. The ecologists, who may command up to
- 20% of the vote this month, could provide the margin for a Rocard
- victory in 1995.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-