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News stories from Sunday May 10, 1981
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- A Socialist will lead France for the next seven years. In a close presidential election Francois Mitterrand, the Socialist Party leader, defeated incumbent President Valery Giscard d'Estaing by what is expected to be four percentage points, a victory unexpectedly solid by French standards. For the first time since Charles de Gaulle established the Fifth Republic in 1958, control has passed from the right and center-right groupings to the left and center-left. Exuberant Parisians sang and danced in the Place de la Bastille, the traditional celebration ground of the working class. [New York Times]
- West Germany's coalition government was strained by a parliamentary election in West Berlin that dealt the Social Democratic Party, the party of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, its worst losses since World War II. No party won a majority in West Berlin, but the Christian Democrats made strong gains and became the dominant party in the city legislature, and the Social Democratic Mayor, Hans-Jochen Vogel, announced that he would step down. [New York Times]
- An election in a Texas border town whose population is more than half Mexican-American failed by a slight margin to place a Hispanic in office. Despite strong support, Dr. Ramiro Casso was defeated by Othal Brand, who was re-elected Mayor of McAllen for a second four-year term. Dr. Casso, who would have been the first Hispanic mayor, had accused Mr. Brand, an onion farmer, of not acting quickly enough halt mistreatment of Mexican-American prisoners by police officers. The brutality issue was backed up by nationally televised videotapes showing officers mistreating prisoners during interrogations. [New York Times]
- A guest-worker program for Mexicans is being considered by the Reagan administration as a means to improve Mexican-American relations and curb illegal migration. But American church, civil rights, Hispanic-American and labor groups oppose it, saying that "it makes no sense" to bring in additional workers when the United States already has eight million unemployed. [New York Times]
- Labor unions and the White House are far apart, and their lack of rapport might be reaching a historic depth. Labor and administration officials say they cannot recall when there was so little give and take between the major labor organizations and an administration and so much ill feeling. [New York Times]
- A cut in city and state taxes on banks in New York has gained powerful political support in New York City and Albany, with a view to making New York more competitive with other states in attracting banking business. New York is the home of six of the nation's 10 biggest banks and is no danger of losing its status as the nation's banking center, but the New York City Budget Director explained that the New York's banking industry growth recently been slower than in other states. [New York Times]
- Moscow responded angrily to the comments of Secretary of State Alexander Haig Saturday in his commencement address at Syracuse University, asserting that the Soviet Union was suffering from "spiritual exhaustion," a condition that might make it a more "dangerous adversary." The official Soviet press agency Tass said that Mr. Haig had expressed the "global ambitions of the United States with even greater cynicism than is typical for the present U.S. leadership." [New York Times]
- Syria showed signs of displeasure with the American diplomatic efforts to end the confrontation of Syria and Israel in Lebanon while the American special envoy to the Middle East, Philip Habib, had a four-hour conference in Damascus with President Hafez al-Assad. A government-controlled newspaper questioned the usefulness of Mr. Habib's mission and repeated the official Syrian view that Israel was responsible for the Syrian-Israeli clash in Lebanon. [New York Times]
- Israel's air force will "act" if the United States fails to persuade Syria to remove its anticraft missile batteries from Lebanon, Prime Minister Menachem Begin said at a political rally in Jerusalem. Israel regards the the Soviet-built missiles as a direct threat to its ability to strike Palestinian guerrilla camps and to observe Lebanon from the air. Mr. Begin and Mr. Habib are scheduled to meet tomorrow. [New York Times]
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