---

• n  a major change in attitude or principle or point of view

• In an apparent volte-face from his earlier tone, he outlined four gradual stages of decolonization, only at the end of which would the possibility of independence be broached.
• Politicians and Senate reporters were mystified by Dirksen's volte-facethough after watching his ambidextrous performances in the past, they should not have been.
• Less than 24 protest-punctuated hours later, he promptly did a volte-face and declared, "it's not the government's intention to abolish the legal working limit.

• about-face
• reversal
• policy change

News & Articles

---

• Serious Syria: Shale oil’s global revolution, a weak NATO and the crisis that’s not going away
  Sol W. Sanders President Barrack Obama’s sudden volte-face on a strike against the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad has only put on hold the enormous stakes in the crisis’ ultimate outcome. In one of those curious turns of history, an ugly, bloody, little conflict in an always fragile, volatile, artificial nation-state created in [...]
  Sept. 2, 2013 - World Tribune

Quotes

---

• Sir Menzies Campbell in guardian.co.uk
  The Lib Dems' foreign affairs spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell, joked that he "welcomed the government's volte-face - for which President Bush must take some credit......"
• Sanjay Kapoor in Inter Press Service
  The admission "raised suspicion in New Delhi's paranoid security establishment," commented Sanjay Kapoor in the 'Hardnew's magazine, New Delhi, "The obvious questions that are being asked are: why did Pakistan do a volte-face and where will...
• Nigel Farage in Telegraph.co.uk
  Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, said: "The volte-face of Mr O'Leary stinks of financial opportunism, He is clearly a man of no political principles whatsoever."