1.
GV Hotel PLM St. Jacques
0.11

2.
SCU Portrait of Pompidou
0.13

3.
SCU Giscard d'Estaing:
0.37

4.
Press photographers (2 shots)
0.45

5.
SCU D'Estaing talking:
2.03



Initials AE/12.31 AE/12.49



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: M. Valery Giscard D'Estaing, holding his first press conference on Thursday (April 11) since he announced his candidacy for the vacant French Presidency, stressed the similarity of his thinking to the ideas of the late President Pompidou.

M. Giscard D'Estaing who has often been described as distant and aloof, said that he would be concerned with the problems of individuals at every level.

On foreign affairs, he stressed that France had a role in international politics, especially within Europe. He pointed out that he had been present when President Pompidou named 1980 as the year when European unity should be achieved. This event, he went on to say, was within the seven-year Presidential term and he would do everything to achieve it.

The first poll for the Presidency is on May 5. Although the poll is almost certain to be topped by M. Francois Mitterrand by virtue of his being the common candidate of the socialists and the communists, it will also indicate who will go forward from the Majority Government Party for the final run-off on May 19.