been linked.) In France, the date for an Assembly debate
has now receded beyond the 'Geneva Conference, so that there will be nothing, at that meeting, to prevent the French from having their arm twisted, if the Communists try to link au Indo-Chinese settlement with the abandonment of EDC. It now looks as though M. Laniel is reluctant to agree on any date, until all three of the conditions which the Assembly laid down last year have been fulfilled. These were : American guarantees to the European Community, closer British participation in it, and a Franco-German agreement on the Saar. Negotiations are in progress to meet the first two, which Lord Salisbury is confident will be satisfactory. If they are not, the British Government will have much on its conscience. The Saar is to be discussed again, soon, by M. Bidault and Dr. Adenauer, but the gulf that at present divides them Is wider than either of them can span. Germany wants gradual progress towards a common market; France cannot content• plate opening a chink in her protective walls. In all these manoeuvres, the French are hobbled by. two basic difficulties. The first is that powerful people insideTte French administra- tion, of whom Marshal Juin was only one and one of the more easily removable, are bent on sabotaging the EDC. The second is that if M. Laniel's coalition falls on this issue, there is not another one in sight to take its place.
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