THE Battle of Agincourt, even with the Welsh archers flicking their
two arrow fingers contemptuously in the direction of the French cavalry,
cannot have involved as much grief and humiliation as France's
elimination from the the world cup by Bulgaria last week.
Huddled queues formed at the newspaper kiosks of Paris on Thursday
morning like funeral processions and it took the inauguration of the
magnificent new wing of The Louvre to put a little balm on the aching
wound of national pride.
The new Richelieu wing, which for 100 years was the nation's
six-storey Ministry of Finance is now, after a lot of building work, an
integral three-floor section of The Louvre Museum.
It has doubled their exhibition space and provided a showcase for
their collections of sculpture, Islamic art, painting and art objects.
The national press and television, alternating between headlines of
the world cup fiasco and the inauguration of ''Le Grand Louvre'' have
oscillated between tones of tragedy and those of cocky pride.
You could hardly move for the crowds in those huge new museum rooms
yesterday after President Mitterrand, his Prime Minister Edouard
Balladur and Culture Minister Jacques Toubon attended an official
opening ceremony organised and timed with the etiquette and the
precision of a monarch's court.
That curious political couple, an ostensibly socialist president and a
right wing premier, has now been governing the affairs of the country
for eight months in a tranquil ''cohabitation'' which contrary to
expectations is working to everyone's satisfaction.
The economic situation may be getting ever worse, with unemployment at
an alarming 3.25 million and zero industrial growth predicted for next
year. Yet the Mitterrand-Balladur partnership trundles along with
neither getting in the way of the other.
In practice, President Mitterrand has quietly adapted to his right
wing Government. He holds weekly meetings with Mr Balladur, the Foreign
Affairs Minister Alain Juppe and Defence Minister Francois Leotard to
discuss flashpoint subjects like Yugoslavia and Somalia.
It is all curiously pragmatic and sensible and as far as politics go,
very un-French. It means that everyone involved enjoys the exercise of
power and can claim they represent ''la politique de la France''.
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