CONFIDENTIAL
CRESSON. MME EDITH
Minister for European Affairs.
Born 1935 near Paris. Daughter of a Socialist senior civil servant. An economist by training. She joined the Socialist Party (PS) after meeting Mitterrand (to whom she has been very close) in the sixties. She worked hard in its youth and student section. Member of the Management Committee of the PS. 1975-81. She freely admitted that she owed her place in the Party leadership to the rule that the top bodies must contain at least 10% women. MEP 1979-81. Having twice run unsuccessfully against the incumbent centrist notable in a Vienne constituency, she finally won the seat in 1981. Minister or Agriculture in 1981: Minister of External Trade 1983: also of Industrial Redeployment (1984). PS Deputy from 1986-88. She became Minister for Europe in May 1988.
Mme Cresson is an attractive and energetic woman with an exuberant personal and political style. Reckoned by some in the French administration to be rather too fond of confrontationai tactics, she is said nevertheless to be open to advice. She is not a very subtle analyst, but comes across weil on television. She wrote a somewhat artless political auto-biography "Avec le Soleil" in 1977. Her appointment as Minister of Agriculture appeared to be due more to her sex and her loyalty to Mitterrand than to any technical expertise: and her relations with the traditionally conservative French farmers were initially very difficult indeed. They evidently mistrusted a woman Minister who had no farming background and whom they regarded as primarily a PS ideologue. She then showed courage and determinanon in getting to grips with farm problems and her relations with farmers consequently improved. As Minister for External Trade, she rapidly made her mark by announcing her determination to reduce the alarming size of the trade deficit and by her apparent willingness to contemplate a measure of protectionism in order to do so. When Industrial Redeployment was added to her portfolio (1984), she handled industrial issues with a vigorous and relatively non-ideological approach. She is eager to assert a co-ordinating interministerial influence on French preparations for 1992.
Mme Cresson is married to Jacques, a Peugeot executive. They have two children. She has visited England many times and her English is very good.
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CONFIDENTIAL
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