A Test for the Front Populaire The Congress of the
French Radical Party at Biarritz ended on Sunday without destroying the unity of the Popular Front. M. Roche, leader of the Right Wing Radicals, put forward a resolution condemning the Communists which, if it had been accepted, would have caused a political crisis ; and, to support the resolution, the Congress had . been packed with new members. of the party brought to Biarritz by the organisers of this " Plot of the Two Hundred Families " against the Blum Government. The plot was skilfully defeated by applying the party rule, never invoked before, that members of less than one year's standing should not vote at the Congress. A compromise resolution, sponsored by M. Herriot and M. Daladier, reaffirming the principles of the Party was passed unanimously. Its most important clause was that which asserted the inviolability of private property, as guaranteed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. There is genuine dissatisfaction in the Party at the activity of the Communists and infringement of pro. perty rights by the stay-in strikes. The strikes and Communism are, however, both on the decline. The Communists have asserted their belief, on conditions, in private property ; on this basis there is still room for continued co-operation with the Radicals. But in France as elsewhere events in Spain have moderated the sympathy of the middle class for the Left Wing movement.
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