The World - News from June 8, 1987

French Premier Jacques Chirac, acting to defuse a weeklong crisis, backed off from his demand that outspoken Culture Minister Francois Leotard choose between his government duties and his duties as a leader of the Republican Party. The premier had been angered by a magazine interview in which Leotard, 45, said he would not support Chirac in the first round of next spring’s presidential elections. Leotard’s centrist party is allied with Chirac’s conservative Rally for the Republic party. It had been feared that if Leotard quit, other centrist ministers would have followed.