THE POST-DE GAULLE ERA BEGINS

As France prepared to elect its first new President in more than a decade, the two surviving candidates to succeed Charles de Gaulle virtually reversed their earlier campaign strategies and styles. Interim President Alain Poher had conducted an aloof, deliberately understated campaign during the first round of voting, basking in the premature warmth of his discovery by the country. Last week Poher was scrambling frantically across France and, feeling a chill, shouting to audiences with such ferocity that he lost most of his voice. Ex-Premier Georges Pompidou, by contrast, was far more relaxed in Round 2, affecting the role of statesman, visiting only a few provincial towns in a casual, confident gesture of no blesse oblige. The switch in styles reflected the men's change of fortune. On election eve, all the auguries and omens indicated that Pompidou was assured of becoming the next President of France. Final polls gave him a comfortable 58% of the expected vote. Looking Ahead. Poher had no illusions about his chances. Nearly a week before the balloting, he promised to send Pompidou a congratulatory telegram on election night once the outcome was clear, "just the way a defeated presidential candidate does in the U.S." Nonetheless, he felt it his duty to campaign as hard as he could, and campaign he did. During a hastily organized blitz of twelve cities and towns, he pushed the cause of a revived center-left government and an end to Gaullism. Poher hit hard at the large state-security apparatus built up by De Gaulle, but still refused to deal directly with many other issues. In riposte, Pompidou's supporters noted dryly that as a Senator, Poher had not opposed creation of the state-security tribunal that he was now criticizing. But Pompidou himself declined to comment on most of Poher's criticism. Like the majority of Frenchmen, Pompidou seemed less interested in the campaign windup than in looking ahead to a France under his leadership. Reconciliation. Well aware that he would need the trust of his citizens above all, Pompidou has constantly emphasized reconciliation--between Gaullists and non-Gaullists, between workers and patrons, between the presidency and the legislature, between the old France and the new. Politically, Pompidou's unity would doubtless begin at home --in his Cabinet. Some of his most important support has come from outside the Gaullist party, notably from Independent Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Centrist Jacques Duhamel. The endorsements will no doubt be handsomely repaid. Giscard d'Estaing, a successful Finance Minister under De Gaulle, was considered a likely candidate to become Foreign Minister under Pompidou --partly because his most important conditions for support involved working toward European political unity. For the job of prime minister, Pompidou has said that he will look to a member of the Gaullist party, but one capable of effecting national reconciliation and producing a "more far-reaching dialogue with the Assembly." The man best equipped to perform both chores seemed to be the handsome speaker of the Assembly, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, one of the major heroes of the World War II Resistance, who served under leftist Fourth Republic governments before joining the Gaullists.

Curiously, the Cabinet may be even less important under Pompidou than it was under De Gaulle. For although the imperious general ruled France, in many areas he failed to govern it. Many of the details of his policies and much of the routine administration did not interest him, and he left such matters to his ministers. That is not likely to be true of Pompidou, who is a superb administrator and has already told his inner circle that he intends to govern as well as rule.

Filling Chairs. He will have plenty to do. The most pressing immediate problem on the country's agenda is the economy. To curb fast-rising inflation, Pompidou has mentioned the possibility of floating a new state bond issue, which would convert back into savings some of the money that has forced domestic consumption to record heights. As for his longer-range hope of bolstering the economy, he will undoubtedly try to restore a favorable trade balance--which last month ran a deficit of $312 million--by resisting excessive wage demands and encouraging exports through tax incentives or subsidies. He is adamantly opposed to devaluing the franc unilaterally, but has endorsed financial cooperation with France's partners; this may well result in multilateral negotiations later this year for a cheaper franc and a dearer West German mark.

In other dealings abroad, Pompidou has shown no strong urge to renounce Gaullist policy wholesale, but he will undoubtedly make changes in the long run. He spoke recently of the "difficulties" of admitting Britain to the Common Market, but would quietly reseat France at council meetings of the West European Union, the only organization that groups Britain with the six Common Market nations.

He is also likely to fill France's empty chair at the Geneva disarmament talks, which could result in eventual signing of the nuclear test-ban and nonproliferation treaties.

To Charles de Gaulle, still keeping his holiday exile in Ireland, far from the men jostling for his place, such minor adjustments to his grand designs must not have seemed too unexpected or unpalatable. But in one throwaway line at the end of the campaign, Georges Pompidou surely caused the old general to bristle with anger and dismay. It was an observation that exposed as perhaps nothing else could the gap between De Gaulle's view of France and the world and that of Pompidou--and between the France of De Gaulle and that of post-De Gaulle. In examining for a French audience the destiny of their country, Pompidou reflected for a moment and then suggested that the France of the future could well turn out to be "something like Sweden with a little more sunshine."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.