By David Ellis/Reported by Sidney Urquhart

For the past two years French President FRANCOIS MITTERRAND, 74, has made an unbroken string of political blunders, and now people are beginning to question his ability to understand a rapidly changing international scene. His latest mistake: publicly concluding that Gennadi Yanayev and his co-conspirators were "the men in charge" and calling sanctions "premature." This follows Mitterrand's efforts to broker a peace plan just hours before the deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, and his vain attempt to halt German unification.