Giscard’s RP party. Ever since he had broken
away from de Gaulle in 1962, Giscard’s relations
with the Gaullists had been characterised by
opposition as much as by cooperation. Yet coop-
eration between the Gaullists and the RP was
essential if they were to beat off the combined
forces of the left. So Giscard set out to strengthen
his government by drawing his ministers from a
broad coalition of the right and centre with
Jacques Chirac, a Gaullist UDR leader, as prime
minister. The intensely ambitious Chirac had, like
Giscard, served Pompidou as a minister, but he
felt no sympathy for much of Giscard’s liberal
reforming zeal, nor for his European outlook.
Chirac’s power base was the UDR, whose influ-
ence Giscard was attempting to erode by creating
a broad coalition of the right and centre. Giscard,
who to begin with had cordially refrained from
presidential interference in government affairs,
was soon clashing with Chirac over control of
policies. But their cooperation in 1974 and 1975
saw the passage of important reforms.
Giscard projected himself as a popular people’s
president, modelling his fireside television chats
on those of Franklin Roosevelt, in an attempt to
overcome his elitist disdain for the people. But his
desire for a more liberal, modern and just society
was both strong and sincere. He was sympathetic
to the assertion of women’s rights and a number
of laws were passed in 1974 and 1975 to help
achieve equality of the sexes; greater benefits were
allowed to single parents; abortion was legalised;
and divorce was made easier if it was mutually
desired or if the marriage had broken down.
Health programmes received large additional
funds. The poorest were helped by increases in
the minimum wage, and Giscard also showed his
concern for the lot of the immigrants from North
Africa. Excessive state controls and administrative
intrusions into private lives, such as telephone
tapping, were restricted.
These liberal reforms met with much opposi-
tion from the Gaullists in the National Assembly
and passed only with the help of the left. It was
clear to Chirac that his association with these
Giscard-inspired policies was bound to alienate
him from the Gaullist UDR. His break with the
president came in August 1976, when he resigned
in protest against Giscard’s interference in gov-
ernment and his increasing reliance on his own
Elysée staff. The differences between them on
social and foreign policies, with Giscard more
intent on strengthening Western European coop-
eration and the institutions of the European
Community, were real and deep. And of course
an independent Chirac was in a better position to
build up a political power base to displace Giscard
when the time came. Without Chirac’s help,
however, Giscard’s efforts after 1976 to push
through further social reforms were largely frus-
trated.
On the economic front Giscard was unfortu-
nate to be in office during the difficult 1970s,
when the shocks of increasing oil prices in
1973–4 and 1979–80 seriously damaged world
trade. Nothing like this had happened before and
governments in the West were uncertain how best
to adjust economic policy. Giscard began in 1974
with a policy of austerity and deflation. Industrial
production dropped and unemployment rose to
1 million. Then, in the characteristic stop–go
pattern of the time, the policy was reversed in
1975 to counteract the recession. The result was
inflation and higher wages, which led to an
increase in imports and a deteriorating balance of
trade. Chirac’s successor as prime minister in
1976 was Raymond Barre, who also held the post
of finance minister. Barre did not come from the
ranks of National Assembly politicians, but was
economics professor at the Sorbonne and later
vice-president of the European Commission – a
background reminiscent of the highly successful
German finance minister of the 1950s, Ludwig
Erhard. Indeed, Barre took the German free-
market economy, with its minimum of govern-
ment regulation, as his own model.
The Barre Plan began with savage austerity,
which reduced inflation rapidly but inevitably
increased unemployment. This was followed in
1978 by a step-by-step programme to free indus-
try from state regulations and directions. But
much tighter controls were exerted over state-
sector industries: their subsidies were reduced and
industries in trouble were no longer bailed out.
The state, however, still directly oversaw the plan-
ning of what Giscard and Barre regarded as key