President Mitterrand reflects

Press, 2 July 1983, Page 18

President Mitterrand reflects

The Wheat and the Chaff. By Francois Mitterrand. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London, 1982. 284 pp. $41.95.

(Reviewed by

Alan Clark)

As well as his current preoccupations as President of France, Francois Mitterrand has long been known, in both his country and continental Europe generally, as an author of substance. Over the last 25 years the intellectual and stylistic qualities of his essays have attracted a readership which extends well beyond partisan Socialist confines. As the French Left grew to majority status during the 19705, Mitterrand’s writing developed autobiographical dimensions: in effect, he was seeking to complement the established images of Left-wing intellectual and party leader with more universally acceptable characteristics appropriate to a future national President. “The Wheat and the Chaff’ is the record of that process. It offers a 40 per cent selection taken from two volumes of autobiographical “jottings” (Mitterrand’s over-modest term) originally published in 1974 and 1978. Informal autobiography—a hybrid of individual record, contemporary commentary and reflections of a more permanent interest—is a strongly popular mode of writing on the French publishing scene. This example of it survives its translation-emasculation well. The publisher’s commercial sub-title is not helpful however. “The Personal Diaries of the President of France 1971-1978” manages to combine the titillating with the official and institutional. It contains an obvious distortion: during the years indicated Mitterrand was leader of the French Socialist Party, not President of the Republic. And by temperament Mitterrand is the last person to commit the vulgar indiscretion of publishing a “personal diary.” Instead, the book proposes a smoothly engineered sampler of its author’s experience-in-relection: political preoccupations and projects, moral and intellectual convictions, emotional and aesthetic enthusiasms.

The maturity of thought—perception, analysis, assessment—of a political leader approaching the height of his achievement can be sensed throughout. The tone is confident, serene even, never bombastic. Elements of Mitterrand’s personal life are included, but in a restrained fashion that is often charming: schooldays, his dogs, Titus and Dick, card games, mixed success at gardening, views on the new Paris skyscrapers, the constant reading. His regular celebration of the natural world as exemplified in the French countryside is a much more prominent theme. “I live France. I have a deep instinctive awareness of France, of physical France, and a passion for her geography, her living body”: too mystical or pompous for ready assimilation by New Zealand’s political culture, such phrases speak four-squarely to France’s rural heritage, one that is passionately felt now that it has largely vanished. National political credentials are established. Memories and evaluations of De Gaulle, Pompidou and Giscard d’Estaing are fundamentally critical, but balanced, argued. Giscard, in particular, is the target for sinfully accurate rapier thrusts, executed with unflurried dignity. The Marquis de Sade was a Frenchman, remember. Monetary policy, the computerisation of society, the growth of multi-national corporations, pornography, arms sales, nuclear power, the judicial system . . . : over these and numerous other topics Mitterrand ranges with an incisive and enlightening touch. Neither pedantic nor exhaustive, his remarks are pointed, stimulating (which is not to say necessarily convincing); the welloiled concision of long reflection. If he writes within the French context, the essential thrust of his arguments and conclusions have universal resonance. The author’s overwhelming concern during the period covered was to lead the French Left to electoral victory. It is odd therefore to find but slight reference to the 1974 Presidential Election (when Mitterrand lost to Giscard) and no mention of the

Legislative Elections of 1974 and 1978. The stormy relations between Socialist and Communist parties through these years is also largely omitted. All this is understandable in a work intended for the general interest market, but it does falsify Mitterrand’s original picture. The situation is not improved by a handful of errors concerning French political life. Better editing would also have provided an index. “I have long ago ceased taking part in official ceremonies”: August 1973. Since May, 1981, President Mitterrand has shown no perceptible reluctance to occupy the ceremonial role required of his office. For the last two years he has also been one of the West’s firmest opponents of Soviet nuclear aggression. In an entry dated September, 1976, he writes: “I sincerely believe in the Soviet desire for peace.” Perhaps after all “The Wheat and the Chaff” reveals of its author-subject more than was intended. Whatever the truth of the matter, as a self-portrait of a modern leader, the book has few rivals. As an insight into the ideals underpinning the currently hardpressed Socialist enterprise in France, it is informative, enthusing, but not without pathos.