TENSIONS IN FRANCE
By D. STURGE MOORE THE snow has sludged and dripped away from the roofs and pavements of Paris, and premature spring has resumed its course. Everyone hopes that hens will be duped into taking March for April and that the price of eggs will drop. No one is particularly perturbed by the forecast of another cold spell in mid-March, for coal-boxes are not so desolately empty as was expected last October. But the cold east wind brought other troubles than snow and ice. The need for broadening the basis of the present Government has been much discussed during the last few days. Whether, in fact, M. Schuman will invite other personalities to join him is at present far from clear ; it does, however, seem probable that his position has been strengthened, if only by the fact that his Ministry is still in office. His Government has weathered the storm of the with- drawal of the 5,000-fr. notes, even if it did so at the cost of much reducing the scope of the measure. The majority obtained in the Assembly on this measure was the smallest so far recorded, but it is clear that many who abstained did so either for electoral reasons or because they wished to express a comparatively harmless censure of one or other of the Ministers. Had the Government been really in danger, the majority would have scrambled to cast their votes for its survival. Thus on a Parliamentary level the Government's present majority remains fairly stable in spite of continuous bicker- ing and disagreement between the various parties which go to make it up.
Whilst France's survival is in a great measure being decided beyond her frontiers, M. Schuman's survival depends almost entirely on the essentially domestic question of prices. If prices continue to rise as they have done in the past few weeks social unrest will be inevitable. It is inevitable, too, perhaps, that the steps which the Government is taking to deal with prices, now that M. Mayer's financial measures are in operation, should seem rather haphazard. Importing foodstuffs, setting up token shops which receive supplies for sale at minimum prices, and tightening controls on producers and suppliers (which incidentally no previous Government has suc- ceeded in operating) give the impression of piecemeal patchwork. On the other hand this problem is definitely short-term. In two or three months at the most it will be possible to judge what M. Mayer's financial measures are going to bring in ; by that time, too, harvest prospects will be more clearly seen, whilst the land will already be supplying in greater abundance the needs of the urban dinner-table ; finally, if optimistically, Marshall aid and co-operation may be on the point of becoming a reality. Thus the Government needs time (May 1st is usually given as zero hour) to prove that its policy can work. In order to gain these vital two months prices must come down, especially food prices. Already, however, there are indications that the Government will have to fight hard. The Communist-controlled trade unions, after agreeing in principle not to make any wage demands if there were a to per cent. reduction in prices, are beginning to show signs of impatience. They intend to demand a general wage increase after March 15th. The growth of the non-Communist Force Ouvriere trade union organisation continues, but there is still a good deal of wishful thinking about its strength, which has not been dissipated by the recent miners' ballot in which Communist C.G.T. candidates polled some 8o per cent. of the votes.
Though it is unlikely that even without State interference, now being elaborately prepared, the Communists could stage a general strike, there is no doubt that union organisation remains very strong and that bad economic conditions can give powerful backing to any agitation they may launch. Today it seems clearer than ever that any major engagement in the social field would form part of a plan orchestrated from Moscow, and it must be recognised that the Communists have in the C.G.T. a powerful weapon from a purely French point of view. The political opposition having gone, as the result of the split last December, the C.G.T. leaders are free to devote themselves more directly to purely trade union questions, whilst the Force Ouvriere organisation, though it is non-party, having broken away on the grounds of political domination, is forced into politics if only in opposing the Communists. At the same time it must build up its organisation in the teeth of one already firmly established. It is often forgotten too that the Communist politicians and trade union leaders,chowever inhuman their speeches or actions may seem, are human beings. For more than two years many of them held important and responsible positions, and though the use which they made of these can justly be criticised, they have left their mark on the men themselves. Today many of them have a feeling that they are treated as outcasts, which goes to reinforce their profound inferiority complex, whilst at the same time the change of the party line has brought new and more ruthless leaders to the fore. Thus each of the more established leaders is con- tinuously fighting to preserve his place and also his self-respect. The new men are only too ready to regard the latter as a symptom of bourgeois trend.
Next week-end General de Gaulle is to appear in public for the first time for some weeks. His organisation has let it be known that he will make an important speech, and it is believed that he will show no greater tenderness than usual for the parties now support- ing the Government. However that may be, a number of local elections have shown that R.P.F. candidates are holding their own, whilst Communist Party regressions are only slight. But it would be foolish to attach too much importance to these results, just as there is some wishful thinking in lobby talk of the decline of Gaullism. In fact the R.P.F. is getting into its stride as a political organisation ; after the first fine frenzy of the October days it is beginning to learn that flag-waving, the General's portrait, and 1940 are not enough. The other day a monster rally organised by the R.P.F. in Paris, but which the General did not attend, was a com- parative failure. M. Gaston Palewski read a speech on foreign policy which no one pretended was anything but from the General's hand. The main lines of M. Palewski's speech followed a familiar course. But one point in particular perhaps caught public attention. It was a rather violent attack on the Dunkirk Pact. M. Palewski has since had to explain rather laboriously what he meant. Both he and the General, he says, consider affiance with Great Britain as desirable, but no such agreement should have been signed until a common policy had been reached on the German question.
Whatever changes the General and his followers may hope to bring to the French Constitution, it seems a little difficult to see what they can do about the Pact except reach agreement with Britain over Germany, and this is certainly closer today than it was a year ago. M. Andre Malraux also spoke at the meeting, and once again one was struck by the fine romantic fervour which fills this great novelist. If the R.P.F. sometimes gives the impression of being in the doldrums, there are the Council-General elections which cannot be postponed much longer. This will give us a fairer chance of measuring its real popular strength. The General's opinions, too, whatever personal antipathies may exist between him and M. Bidault, are very care- fully considered whenever foreign policy is discussed.
During the pist few days foreign policy and world affairs have very suddenly seemed overwhelming. The Russo-Communist danger is now widely appreciated, though some confusion remains, due largely to the gradual re-emergence of people who might almost be described as professional " anti-Communists." Only too few years ago this " creed" brought them, at any rate, to the periphery of power, if its Vichy substitute can be so called. They are certainly not those for whom M. Bidault spoke when he said that there can be no democracy without liberty. The average Frenchman, however, regards the flow of international currents as beyond his control ; he is chiefly concerned in setting his own house in order. Unfor- tunately, this house is too often his own in the narrowest sense of the word ; his interest in the condition of even a party-wall is restricted to that facing his own parlour.
On the other hand, a decisive change in French foreign policy has now become apparent. The last traces of an always half-hearted attempt to remain on the fence have disappeared. French diplomady can no longer hope to win laurels as an honest broker ; its successes in future must be positive. It is thus possible that M. Bidault, who has held office almost continuously since the Liberation, may be able to play a more effective part than heretofore, since in one sense
his field of action has been narrowed. The hard case of French foreign policy is still the German• question; French -intransigence has for long been one of the main stumbling-blocks to agreement between the Western Powers at least, and whatever new arrangements may be arrived at the question of federal Germany will =maim. There is a growing realisation that circumstances will impose some sort of federalism in Western Europe, whatever present divergencies may exist on principle or detail. Many people here believe that the French views on Federal Germany would then fall naturally into place, though there is no present indication that the Quai d'Orsay views the question from this angle. It is perhaps not entirely contradictory to suggest that Western Europe needs today, in order to achieve that unity which circumstance dictates, not statesmen, for the sources of power lie elsewhere, but politicians with an international outlook, and M. Bidault is a first-rate politician.
Previous page
