La revolution, c'est moi!
There is a blessed regularity about the politi- cal history of France. What General de Gaulle himself has called 'the delights of anarchy' alternate with the pursuit of glory with all the inevitability of night and day. Only the timing is unpredictable.
Of course there are other explanations for the storm which has blown up without warn- ing from what appeared to be the calmest of skies. Unemployment has been rising steadily, and the material expectations of millions of Frenchmen, particularly those who are living on a regular salary with no escape from the haphazard tax system, have been deferred for too long. The gradual emergence of the European Community's agricultural structure, with all that it has seemed to promise for the French farmers, has slowed down the drift from the land more successfully than it has raised the living standards of the agricultural com- munity. Deprived of effective parliamentary institutions, the regime itself has been un- aware until too late of the resentments building-up against it.
Yet the explosion, when it came, bore all the marks of spontaneity. Certainly it was not prepared by the political opponents of the Fifth Republic. The Communists, taken completely by surprise, worked hard to tamp out indications of solidarity between he students and the factory workers until hey found that their voters were not re- pending to orders. The disparate and ivided groups of the non-Communist centre d left and their leaders have not emerged ern discredit. It was the traditional French vie en masse. ance. It follows the path of conciliation which the Prime Minister has pursued since his return from Afghanistan. But can the unions now deliver their members?
At any rate, this approach is markedly —and instructively—in contrast with that of the President. De Gaulle has always relished a crisis. He has always played for high stakes, and this time the stakes may be the highest of his career. As Marc Ullmann points out elsewhere in this issue, he has deliberately allowed the descent into chaos and confusion to gather momentum. By nature an outsider, he sees this as his chance to reach beyond the established institutions —political parties, trade unions, trade or- ganisations and all—which in his view represent cloying conventional attitudes at home and abroad, and appeal to the mass of the people direct. They want a revolution: he offers to lead it. If the people are not as dis- illusioned with their representatives as he is, and as he thinks they should be. then he expects the fear of disintegration or the state to rally them to his side once more.
It is obviously a gamble. If it fails—if there is not in fact a rapid return to work and public order after his broadcast this weekend—then all the real achievements of his ten years' reign may collapse in dust in the course of a few days. No doubt the General would regard that as a judgmeht, not on himself, but on his fellow-countrymen.
If, however, he succeeds (and it is worth remembering that he has yet to lose a gamble) the Fifth Republic will continue for a time. The General may break : but in essentials he will not bend. The most im- portant of the reforms he has in mind is evident by the implementation of his long- deferred scheme for worker participation in management. The chief effect of this is likely to be to depress the Bourse and discourage industrial investment. But this alone will not be enough. There 'will have to be wage in- creases and other economic concessions which will reduce the competitiveness of the French economy at the worst possible time, when the last barriers to free trade within the European Community are due to dis- appear. To this extent France's ability to embarrass the United. States ,by buying gold will diminish. But this will not be a new situation. For more than a year now, while the French have denounced the us deficit and the monetary system which sustains it, it has been the Germans whose surpluses have piled on the pressure. Now the French may join those who are telling the Germans to revalue their currency.
Similarly, it is sheer wishful thinking to imagine that the General will now adapt his attitudes in international affairs. Even if it were clear that the present crisis had been provoked by fears of political isolation, or the economic isolation to which it could lead, this would not deflect the old man from his purpose. For he has never doubted that he knows his countrymen's interests far better than they will ever do.
Nor will the events of the past ten days materially diminish his ability to influence events. This has never depended on the strength of his hand, but rather on the reluc- tance of others to call his bluff. So long as he remains at the Elysee Palace this iron nerve will not be eroded by discontent in the streets or the factories, any more than it was by the Algerian war. Thus unless his present gamble fails, or he is defeated in the planned referendum—in which case he will no doubt withdraw in scorn to Colombey—the Fifth Republic will resume its course until the next explosion.
Meanwhile, a new leadership in opposi- tion should be preparing to take over when that explosion comes. Unfortunately, of this there is still no sign. The old names —the Mollets and the Mitterands—are still discredited, and of the new ones Lecanuet has failed to fulfil his early promise, while Giscard d'Estaing has been too closely asso- ciated with Gaullism to benefit from any- thing other than an orderly transfer. Anarchy is therefore the likeliest of succes- sors to the General. It is a sobering thought when throughout the western world—and in eastern Europe as well—the failures and dis- appointments of established authorities in a relatively humdrum period of history have led to the emergence of similar trends. The stability of the 1950s based on the confron- tation between the two super-powers has almost gone. World politics are coming alive again; the forms they take could prove disturbing.
