THE STABILITY OF FRANCE
By ANDRk MAUROIS- 111HE most visible sign of the strength of the central power in France is the predominance of Paris. Every country has a capital ; but in none other does the capital mean to the country what Paris means to France. Germany could exchange Berlin for Vienna or Munich tomorrow without affecting the life of the nation. There are millions of men and women in the English countryside who have no inclina- it is more convenient, in spite of geography, to go first to Paris and thence to Rouen. A book published anywhere but in Paris finds no readers ; and the dream of every man who has made his mark in a provincial town is to go to Paris to get his importance confirmed. The whole of France is proud of Paris ; even Versailles has dropped out of French life and is no more than a museum to be admired. At the beginning of the war an attempt was made to evacuate Paris: but the Government departments found it impossible to resist the natural impulse to return to the city, for it is the centre from which radiate all the threads of administration which enable them to govern.
If the seat of power is in Paris, it is in the provinces that the political doctrine which that power must apply takes its form. That doctrine has been, for forty years past, what is called Radicalism. It has nothing in common with the meaning of the word in English. A French Radical is essen- tially one who takes the side of the "little men" against the "big men," or, as Alain the philosopher says, "who is for the citizen against the powers that be." A Radical is opposed to the rich, but, if he lived in Russia he would be just as much opposed to the Commissars. The origin of this state of mind needs some explanation. At the time of the French Revolution the nobility were unpopular because they retained their privileges but no longer fulfilled their duties. The English farmer might have no love for the squire, but he recognised the part which he had to play in the life of the community. The English man of business knew that, if he were a success, his daughter could marry a Lord and become a Lady. But the French aristocracy whose life revolved around the Court had lost touch with the peasants ; and the commercial class, as it became richer, was irritated by the gulf which separated it from the nobility. So the Revolution was directed against The Quality ; and it marked the triumph of the new classes of society.
That Revolution divided France into two camps. The vanquished, "the Whites," have never forgiven ; the victors, "the Blues," have always feared that their old masters would come back to power. All the offensives launched by the aristocracy to regain their position—and they have taken very different forms—have at once united against them the forces of the middle class and the working people. The result of this under the Third Republic was an unhappy divorce between the most illustrious families of France and the powers of the State. These families were still ready to
* This admirable review of aspects of French life is taken by permission from the current issue of British Survey, published by the British Association for International Understanding,
serve the country in the army and in diplomacy. But with very few exceptions they no longer played any part in political life.
The political parties in France are legion: but for con- venience they may be classed in three groups. On the Left are the workers' parties, the Communists and Socialists.
Their members believe more or less in the Class War and the Social Revolution. In the Centre are the Radicals, the party of the peasants, the lower middle class and the func- tionaries. On the Right is a group of Conservative republican parties, to which belong the upper middle class and some of the small gentry, farmers and tradesmen. The distribution of power is such that no one of these groups is strong enough to govern alone. Consequently the following performance is repeated periodically.
The Radicals at a General Election make an alliance with the Socialists, with whom they have in common a desire to tax the people with big fortunes and a determination to resist a little-known monster which they call Reaction. This coalition wins at the polls and proceeds to carry out its election programme. Pretty soon it meets with failure, because it has arrayed against it some of the real forces of the country, because the savings of the people are not forth- coming to finance it, and finally because it fails to resist the temptation of indulging in the methods of the demagogue. So soon as defeat becomes serious and bankruptcy looms ahead, the Radicals regretfully abandon the Socialists and form a Government, either with the Conservative Party or on their own, but relying on Conservative votes. We saw this scene enacted when M. Poincare came into power in 1926, after the Radical and Socialist victory at the election of 1924; we saw it again when M. Pierre Laval came into power in 1934 after the Election of 1932; we saw it played a third time when, two years after the Popular Front Elec- tion of 1936, M. Daladier formed the present Government.
This performance of France on the political tight-rope, now lurching to the Left, now leaning to the Right, some- times worries those who do not know her well. If she inclines to the Left they say "France is going revolu- tionary!" if she leans to the Right they say "France is abandoning her liberties!" But those who know her well know that France is (to change the metaphor) a well-built ship which recovers her trim every time after she has heeled over. She has been afloat now for fifteen hundred years and, despite terrible storms, she has never foundered—a fact which gives those who pass their lives aboard her a legiti- mate confidence. They know that she can, in certain cir- cumstances, abandon herself to movements of anger or of reaction, but that she is essentially reasonable and that she quickly returns to that middle way which is her own. One can hardly imagine France going Communist, nor can one conceive her adopting a system of government such as obtains in Germany. Two things assure her equilibrium— the intelligence of her people and the wise distribution of property.
The parcelling of land has been going on in France for many years. It has brought into being millions of small independent proprietors who, living almost entirely on the products of the soil on their own land, need no one's help and know no master. Liberty has no more faithful sup- porters than such men. Add to them a great number of artisans, small tradesmen who keep shops themselves, owners of tiny factories who employ two to ten working men at the most, and the many officials, and you will understand that the middle classes in France, who are neither a proletariat nor a rich bourgeoisie, form the majority of the people. It is these middle classes who, tending now to the Left, now to the Right, ensure the stability of the country. Theirs are the characteristics which we must study if we wish to under- stand both the courage and the moderation of France.
The average Frenchman is thrifty. He likes to know that he possesses, either in the Savings Bank or in some carved cupboard under piles of old linen, a reserve of money which, if misfortune befalls him, will free him from depending upon charity. Here, too, is a means of defending his inde- pendence. A man who has "something put by" fears no master and can say what he thinks. But if the Frenchman likes to put his money in his stocking, and refills it with astonishing rapidity when a crisis or a war has emptied it, he does not much like telling his neighbours or the Govern- ment what his little hoard amounts to. Maybe this is a relic of the old regime, of those long centuries during which taxes were not—as in England—imposed with the consent of the people. As the privileged classes paid nothing, the poor folk considered that they had the right to evade the tax-collector by keeping their holdings secret. Something of that hereditary state of mind has survived among the French middle class and peasantry.
Perhaps the wars, which are unhappily too frequent nowa- days, will end by destroying the savings of the French people. It would be a sad pity if that happened. Well hidden, prudently invested, never used to finance extrava- gance, those savings are in fact the most precious of the national resources ; and,. what is more, they beget political liberty.
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