Prime Minister Edith Cresson ended a stormy tenure Thursday as France's first woman head of government, resigning amid a deepening economic crisis and a sharp drop in popular support for the ruling Socialist Party. She was replaced by Finance Minister Pierre Beregovoy.
Cresson, appointed last May 15, served only 323 days in that post, the shortest time of any prime minister since the Fifth Republic was founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.In an unusually frank resignation letter to President Francois Mitterrand, the outspoken Cresson said she regretted she had not been permitted to form a smaller, more cohesive government and that she had not received the "explicit support of responsible Socialist Party officials."
Her tenure was marked by deep divisions within the ruling Socialists, whose major figures are already fighting to succeed Mitter-rand, and by a downturn in the French economy. The prime minister also shocked with her blunt, sometimes tactless language.
Beregovoy, 66, is credited with imposing a strict monetary policy that has led to a strong franc and low inflation rate while giving confidence to the business community. But some Socialists blame him for conservative economic policy and a constantly rising unemployment rate now approaching 10 percent.
He will be Mitterrand's sixth prime minister in 11 years.