Simon notes the shrewd use of the conditional but, absorbed by the delicious tagine and by more bitter memories, his concentration wavers.
Surprised by this sudden aggression, Giscard tries to parry it with his customary disdain: “Please, let us maintain an appropriate tone.” But now Mitterrand is ready to let rip: “I intend to express myself exactly as I wish.”
And he hits home: “One and a half million unemployed.”
Giscard tries to correct him: “Job seekers.”
But Mitterrand is no longer in a mood to let anything go: “I am well aware of how you can split hairs.”
He goes on: “You have had both inflation and unemployment, but what’s more—this is the flaw, this is the sickness that risks being fatal for our society: sixty percent of the unemployed are women … most of them are young people … it is a tragic attack on the dignity of man and woman…”
To start with, Simon does not pay attention. Mitterrand speaks faster and faster, he is more and more aggressive, more and more precise, more and more eloquent.
Giscard is on the ropes, but he is not about to give up without a fight. He suppresses his country squire accent and calls out his Socialist opponent: “The rise in the minimum wage—how much?” Small businesses will not survive it. All the more so since the Socialist program is irresponsible enough to plan to lower social thresholds and extend employees’ rights in companies with fewer than ten employees.
The bourgeois from Chamalières has no intention of surrendering.
The two men trade blows.
But Giscard makes a mistake when he asks Mitterrand to tell him the exchange rate of the deutsche mark: “Today’s.”
Mitterrand replies: “Here, I am not your student and you are not president of the Republic.”
Simon drains his glass of wine thoughtfully: there is something self-fulfilling, something of the performative, in that phrase …
Bayard goes off to fetch the cheese.
Giscard says: “I am against the suppression of family tax benefits … I am in favor of a return to a system of flat-rate taxation…” He reels off a whole series of measures with the precision of the good Polytechnique graduate that he is, but it’s too late: he has lost.
The debate goes on though, fierce and technical, over nuclear power, the neutron bomb, the Common Market, East-West relations, the defense budget …
Mitterrand: “Is Monsieur Giscard d’Estaing trying to say that the Socialists would be bad French people, unwilling to defend their country?”
Giscard, off screen: “Not at all.”
Mitterrand, not looking at him: “If he didn’t mean that, then his speech was pointless.”
Simon is troubled. He grabs a beer from the coffee table, wedges it under his armpit, and tries to remove the cap, but the bottle slips out and falls onto the floor. Bayard waits for Simon to explode with rage because he knows how much his friend hates it when daily life reminds him that he is disabled, so he wipes up the beer that has spilled onto the floorboards and is quick to say: “No big deal!”
But Simon looks strangely perplexed. He points to Mitterrand and says: “Look at him. Notice anything?”
“What?”
“Have you listened to him since the beginning? Don’t you think he’s been good?”
“Well, yeah, he’s better than he was seven years ago, that’s for sure.”
“No, it’s more than that. He’s abnormally good.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s subtle, but since the end of the first half hour, he’s been maneuvering Giscard, and I can’t work out how he’s doing it. It’s like an invisible strategy: I can sense it, but I can’t understand it.”
“You’re not saying…”
“Watch.”
Bayard watches as Giscard busts a gut to show that the Socialists are irresponsible fools who must not under any circumstances be trusted with military hardware and the nuclear deterrent: “When it comes to defense, on the contrary … you have never voted with the government on defense, and you have voted against every bill relating to defense. Those bills were presented outside of the budgetary discussion and so it would be perfectly imaginable that either your party or your … or you yourself, aware of the very high stakes of national security, would make a nonpartisan vote on military bills. I note that you did not vote for any of the three military bills … notably that of January 24, 1963…”
Mitterrand doesn’t even bother responding and Michèle Cotta moves on to another subject, so an irritated Giscard insists: “This is very important!” Michèle Cotta protests politely: “Absolutely! Of course, Monsieur President!” And she moves on to African politics. Boissonat is visibly thinking about something else. No one cares. No one is listening to him anymore. It looks as if Mitterrand has completely demolished him.
Bayard begins to understand.
Giscard continues to sink.
Simon spells out his conclusion: “Mitterrand has the seventh function of language.”
Bayard tries to assemble the pieces of the puzzle while Mitterrand and Giscard debate French military intervention in Zaire.
“But, Simon, we saw in Venice that the function didn’t work.”
Mitterrand gives Giscard the coup de grâce on the Kolwezi affair: “So basically, you could have repatriated them earlier … if you’d thought about it.”
Simon points at the TV set:
“That works!”
95
It is raining in Paris, the celebrations have begun at the Bastille, but the Socialist leaders are still at party headquarters, in Rue de Solférino, where an electric joy courses through the ranks of activists. Victory is always an achievement in politics, an end as well as a beginning; that is why the excitement it causes is a mix of euphoria and vertigo. What’s more, the alcohol is flowing freely and, already, the canapés are piling up. “What a night!” says Mitterrand.
Jack Lang shakes hands, kisses cheeks, hugs everyone who crosses his path. He smiles at Fabius, who cried like a baby when the results were announced. In the street, people are singing and shouting in the rain. It is a waking dream and a historic moment. On a personal level, he knows that he will be minister of culture. Moati waves his arms around like a conductor. Badinter and Debray dance a sort of minuet. Jospin and Quilès drink to the memory of Jean Jaurès. Young men and women climb on the railings in Rue de Solférino. Camera flashes crackle like thousands of little lightning streaks in the great storm of history. Lang doesn’t know which way to turn anymore. Someone hails him: “Monsieur Lang!”
He turns around and sees Bayard and Simon.
Lang is surprised. He immediately realizes that these two have not come to join the celebrations.
Bayard speaks first: “Would you mind giving us a few moments of your time?” He presents his card. Lang registers the red, white, and blue stripes.
“What’s this about?”
“It’s about Roland Barthes.”
The sound of the dead critic’s name is like an invisible hand slapping Lang in the face.
“Uh, listen … Not really, I don’t think this is the right time. Later in the week, perhaps? Just see my secretary and she can make an appointment for you. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
But Bayard holds him back by the arm: “I insist.”
Pierre Joxe, who is passing, asks: “Is there a problem, Jack?”
Lang looks over at the policemen guarding the gates. Until tonight, the police have been in the service of their opponents, but now he is in a position to ask them to escort these two gentlemen outside.
In the street, the crowd is chanting “The Internationale,” punctuated by a chorus of car horns.
Simon rolls up the right sleeve of his jacket and says: “Please. It won’t take long.”
Lang stares at the stump. Joxe says to him: “Jack?”
“Everything’s fine, Pierre. I’ll be back in a minute.”