3 OCTOBER 1958, Page 7

A FRIEND who was in Paris last weekend has described

to me the sense of happy catharsis everywhere as the French came out of church on a hot Sunday morning and ambled across the street to discharge their 'Yesses' down the ballot slot. Before the end, official propaganda had worked itself into such a lather and hung so many metaphysical allusions round the neck of `Our that any voter contemplating 'No' found himself defined as traitorous, miserly, life-hating and even sexless. Little Marianne in her wedding-dress gazed trustfully from a poster as this villain skulked by and pleaded with him : `Dites Oui. By the night before the poll, one cinema audience at least was fed up with it all, and yelled down with shouts of 'All right! That'll do!' a film on the evils of Assembly government.

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