The French Elections
usually enjoy very much the richness and fairness of your information, and am particularly glad of your statements about my country ; but a fortnight ago, when I read Mr. Gillie's article about the French elections, I was deeply astonished, and first thought there was in it some kind of British humour. (I laughed until I cried over the idea of the M.R.P.'s missionary activity !) Maybe you would be interested in a French point of view :—
(1) The new system of voting by the apparentements was most unfair —a sheer denial of justice and democracy, since, for instance, an anti- clerical Socialist could have his vote given automatically to the Catholic Centre candidate• and vice-versa. This is the explanation of many abstentions, and most of the bulletins blancs, and of the strong support given to the extreme Left by non-Communists, as a kind of moral protest.
(2) Why did Mr. Gillie so lightly mention the true collapse of the M.R.P. (the Roman Catholic party), which is the most striking and significant feature of our last elections ? So much so that the new system was made especially on purpose to support this same M.R.P. and its friends, and to defeat the Communists. By this collapse, in spite of the propaganda from the Church hierarchy, France has said "No Popery" in a way of its own.
(3) On what grounds can Mr. Gillie assert that Protestants are included in the Communist community ? As a matter of fact many Protestants are faithful readers of the Figaro, where leading_ articles are written every week by Professor A. Siegfried, himself a Protestant of some fame ; and Protestant votes settled de Gaulle's Rally's victories in the Bas-Rhin. Protestants, who are traditionally on the Left wing, are not necessarily Communists, but very often Radicaux, as during the first days of the Third Republic, or Socialists, with M. Andre Philip.
(4) Besides, there is a rather large Catholic Communist group, which makes very clever propaganda (at the same time when the Roman Catholics of England try to persuade their tolerant countrymen that Catholicism and the Vatican are by nature against Communism) and about - which Mr. Gillie does not write at all.—Yours faithfully,
Nutford House, Brown Street, W.1. BERTHE GAVALDA.
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