Balladur clamps down on his warring ministers

EDOUARD BALLADUR, the French Prime Minister, called in two of his senior ministers yesterday, after a public dispute revealed internal cabinet tensions with ominous implications for the months leading up to next year's presidential elections.

Mr Balladur saw Charles Pasqua, the Gaullist Interior Minister, and Pierre Mehaignerie, the centrist Justice Minister, after a week of open bickering over the role of magistrates in applying new immigration laws. While the ministers declined to give details of their separate conversations with Mr Balladur, Mr Mehaignerie suggested that the problem would be dealt with during National Assembly questions today.

The implication was that Mr Pasqua might be seeking a pretext to leave the government, to give himself greater freedom in the 12 months leading up to the next presidential election.

Mr Pasqua, a tough-talking southerner with much grass-roots support in the Gaullist RPR party, has little natural affinity with the refined Mr Balladur, even if they are leaders of the same party.

In government for the past year since the right won the last parliamentary elections, Mr Pasqua, a more natural ally of Jacques Chirac, the RPR president, may feel somewhat restricted by the constraints of normal cabinet loyalty. Both Mr Balladur and Mr Chirac are in the vanguard to be elected president, when Francois Mitterrand's term ends in May next year.

Last week, Mr Pasqua attacked magistrates for their interpretation of immigration laws, which he reformed last year. In particular, he was angry that two Algerians, deported last month for violence during student demonstrations, had been allowed to return after a court ruled that they had not been accorded the full legal process. As a police union issued a statement supporting Mr Pasqua's assertions, Mr Mehaignerie responded by saying that the judiciary should not become 'scapegoats'. A magistrate's union called on Mr Balladur to define the government's position.

The dispute between the two ministers took on a particular importance because the Gaullist Mr Pasqua and the centrist Mr Mehaignerie are on opposite sides of the political divide in France's centre-right government. In a television interview last Sunday, Mr Pasqua added another element by saying that if his plans for amenagement du territoire, (utilisation of the national territory), - a peculiarly French concept - were not accepted, he would draw the consequences and go. This prompted speculation that Mr Pasqua was preparing the ground to leave the government.

With Mr Balladur, although slipping in the polls, still seen as the best-placed politician to take the presidency next year, a resignation would free Mr Pasqua of the need to bite his lip and support the Prime Minister come what may.

It would make it easier for Mr Pasqua to support Mr Chirac, who is said to be badly worried by Mr Balladur's standing in public opinion. Alternatively, a Mr Pasqua free of the ties of high office could campaign for a third, yet undeclared Gaullist candidate.

One obvious choice would be Philippe Seguin, the anti-Maastricht campaigner and president of the National Assembly. Another could be Mr Pasqua himself.