The Danger in • France
Observers on this side of the Channel, taking account of the fact that a number of small French strikes have broken down while the more menacing coal strike has certainly not brought the economy to a standstill, have been tempted to conclude that the whole move- ment has gone off at half-cock. Such a conclusion is over-simple. The coal strike started quietly and has gone on without much fuss for two and a half weeks. Limited strikes of dockers, railwaymen, car workers at Bordeaux, and so on, have spluttered on, one after
the other, in a manner which could as readily suggest co-ordinated action as capricious unrest. The steel workers of Lorraine, as well as the iron miners, are back at work, but if the coal strike goes on much longer they will begin to be hampered by lack of coke. The coal strike itself is patchy, but it does not stop. The details of the picture may be confusing, including as they do many different degrees of dislocation from the criminal flooding of certain mines in the Loire region to semi-normal working at some places in the north where the Communist grip happens to be weak. But the outline is plain. Coal production in France is steadily running down, and the effort of the Communist-led C.G.T. is unremittingly directed to the prevention of recovery. On the whole the method employed is that of slow attrition, as practised by Mr. Molotov, rather than the more spectacular devices of violent revolution. But the danger is none the smaller for that. The direct political strength of the Communist Party may be declining, but they are working their industrial power for all it is worth. And despite the movement of police into the strike areas there is no sign of a new and positive attitude on the part of the Government. A rather feverish attempt to enforce price regulations may help a little. The realignment of the exchange value of the franc can hardly help at all on the home front. The situation cannot be called desperate, but it can become so if the coal strike is not stopped soon.
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