21 JANUARY 1938, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK

BY any calculation, the political manoeuvres of the last week (described by our Paris correspondent on p. 86), resulting in the return of M. Chautemps at the head of a Radical Government, have inflicted a severe defeat on the Front Populaire, and it is probable that in this the crisis has served its purpose. And it is difficult to believe that M. Chautemps' present Government can have any other ftmction but to hold office for a purely transitory period, during which public opinion may take a decisive swing to the Right. For it is clear that by renewed., attacks upon the franc France may be brought to a position in which, with the Front Populaire discredited and disintegrated, there will be no alternative to a Right wing Government. The most promising of the many combinations attempted at the week-end was M. Blum's proposal for an extension of the Front Populaire as far to the Right as M. Reynaud ; its failure was evidence that the time is not ripe for it. It appears, indeed, that the most crucial question of French politics in the next months is whether M. Blum's idea of a " National Union " from the Centre to the Communists can come to fruition, or whether its place will not be taken by a " National Union " which extends from the Centre to the extreme Right. In so critical a situation, both for the country and themselves, it is doubtful whether the. Socialists were wise in their refusal to participate in the Government ; in M. Blum's view it was clearly an error and the consequent exclusion of M. Blum from the Cabinet gravely weakens the administration.