BALLADUR UNDECIDED ON FUTURE, SPOKESMAN SAYS
Finance Minister Edouard Balladur is
undecided over his future in office after next Spring's
presidential election, his spokesman said.
    "He (Balladur) has taken no definitive decision about his
activities in a year's time," his spokesman said in answer to a
Reuters question.
    He was responding to questions on a comment made by
Balladur, a close political associate of right wing Prime
Minister Jacques Chirac, in a radio interview.
    Balladur told a Radio Monte Carlo interviewer "From next
year I shall rediscover the freedom of private life."
    France is due to hold a presidential election in April or
May next year. Under the French political system, the prime
minister and his cabinet tender their resignation to the
incoming President, giving him freedom to appoint a new
government.
    Chirac, leader of a two-party coalition government is
widely assumed to be a presidential candidate, while incumbent
Socialist President Francois Mitterrand is tipped by most
opinion polls to win if he decides to stand again.
    Balladur's stringent economic policies have come under
increasing criticism inside and outside the coalition parties
in recent months as official statistics and forecasts have
shown slowing growth prospects and rising inflation.
    But the spokesman said Balladur was having no second
thoughts about the direction of his policies. "The Minister of
State (Balladur) has one current ambition, which is to achieve
his mission of national economic recovery," he said.
    "He refuses to prejudge the future a year from now."
 REUTER
