Doctor's Mandate in France ?
The new electoral law imposes on next week's general election in France an appearance of tidiness which has not been usual in the past. In order to take advantage of the provision that any party, or group of parties, which wins an absolute majority of votes in a department takes all that department's seats in the Assembly the various elements of the Third Force have fused into one, for the duration of the election. In some areas this arrangement will not be possible ; in all areas Socialists, Radicals and M.R.P. (Mouvemem Republicain Populaire) continue to hold with passion their often irreconcilable beliefs, but in essence the election will be a three-cornered fight between Communists, Third Force and Gaullists. The parties of the Third Force differ from the other two groups in that they are agreed that they want to live in a parliamentary democracy, that they do not want to upset the foreign policy of European co-operation which has been consistently pursued by MM. Bidault and Schuman (both of the M.R.P.), and that France is not yet in a sufficiently robust state of economic and political health to benefit by a course of violent exercise. They want to obtain a doctor's mandate and then leave the patient to recuperate in her own way. This pro- cedure, which could not honestly be called either a programme or a policy, fills both Communists and Gaullists with fury, but it may be what the majority of French people want. It can only be followed with the aid of an electoral law which most electors do not understand, and the rest regard as a piece of organised gerrymandering, but it may produce a Government —or series of Governments—that will work.
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