French Impressions
By D. W. BROGAN FIRST of all, the weather. Of course, it was magnificent (and costly) in England, too, but I had more chance of seeing it at work in France. In some regions it was already menacing by the middle of August. Happily, the drought began too late to destroy the cereal crops as it did in 1947. The French were not driven to the edge of revolt by the threat of the horrible bread inflicted gn them in that year, nor was the balance of payments threatened with upset by the necessity of providing millions on milliogs of dollars for cereal imports. But the drought hit the orchar4 potatoes, beets and, above all, pastures. Cattle had to be killed, arid sent to market prematurely, and that will (ell in high prices and scarcity in the winter. The high prices and the scarcity have already arrived in the case of butter.
Then, as Frans! has more and n3pre come to depend on hydro- electric wer, die dry' f-u of pc reservoks was and is very * serious. The nattgal an s cti'l takes of the Massif Central whi",
• . .
serve Paris as 'ell as nvergne are nearly empty, and trees d houses drowned by t e engineers are appearing above the shrinking waters. In Pris thete are already electricity cyts in ti hotels and houses, arid t re will 4pve to fie more—and, what s worse, ?passible cut in in ustry. No, the magnificent summer is not all jam. But it is part jam. It is a reflection on our north European climate that we c,an rremexpber c arativ5lylew spicnAd s atie pug for to Ho of leOrk t compared we horti: iin rs. about when e p esacire ktlov vir:14t the beginnipg of dor. 1. Of course, the wcaili'r has ke very odd elaewherp. I renrtaber the balnly, samm r le days December, 1948, in New York, and the agreeable MMediterranean
breezes that accompanied the ' Queen Elizabeth' across the normally cold North Atlantic in that normally very unpleasant month. And, a few weeks later, the ski season in New England collapsed for want of snow, which was falling on the disconcerted sun-seekers of Southern California. But violent vagaries of climate are a feature of the otherwise favoured American scene.
Here we had no vagaries, simply an apparently endless succession of glorious days. And that meant in France the outpouring of the population into woods, forests, rivers, lakes. There were the bathers in early April sampling the ponds of the Forest of Compiegne. For France has gone for the outdoor life in a big way. Hikers and hitch-hikers (hitch-hiking is called L'auto slop if you want to know) filled all the roads. And the Water- and sun- bathing recalled the not very remote days when, in provincial France at least, well elevated young ladies were not permitted mixed bathing, even in the fairly ample costumes of those times. They have changed all that, and vast areas of naked male and femak flesh can be seen all over the place—and it is worth noting that while in ancient Greece (if one may believe the painters) sun and air only affected the male skin, now they brown and burn both sexes equally. It was one sign, possibly a minor one, of a great social revolution going on in France. The old Chinese immobility of les moeurs is breaking down—as in China. The old order of the elders is collapsing. Tice authority of mothers and even of grandmothers is not what it was, and les jeurses fines en fieur have a freedom that would have more than horrified Francoise.
A more important sign is the rise in the birth-rate. There seemed to be floods of babies—an impression justified by the figures. There were the light aluminium prams pushed by fond parents, and the children appeared healthy and happy. I believe that this great change, the ending of the slow decline in the French .population. has one main cause, the repeated devaluation of the franc. It is no longer possle to be prudent in the old way ; the decline of the franc since 1914 has seen to that. The careful saving for one or two children, to provide the career for the boy, the dot for the girl. has in nine cases out of ten been love's labour lost. And the old and serious class distinctions are not what they were in this dis- solving world. It may seem the height of imprudence to have children in an age of atomic war, but it is a sign that despair is not as deep as the literary classes think or say.
Indeed, there is_pretty general testimony that there is more hope, more ease of mind, more optimism in France this year than last. There is less talk of war, less fear of war, than there was, more moderate but still quite lively belief that the climb is now upwards. Of course, as with us, that belief is strongest in unreflective classes who see the apparent prosperity and feel and enjoy the real improve- ment in food and supplies of consumer's goods and who see, too, the evident recovery from war damage—all without asking how it is being paid for. But certainly the temper of the country is better. The Queuille recipe: "Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merriman" has worked—so far. Of course, the Cornmimists are only biding their time ; any new crisis, any fumbling of the devaluation problem, will give them a new chance, but at the moment they have to hold their fire. They can no longer automatically summon up their street mobs or their strikers. While I was in Paris a great popular " peace" demonstration against the presence of General Bradley in Paris was arranged. The Government responded by calling out great masses of police. It was easy enough to see them, but hard to see the demonstrators. For the moment, at any rate, only the party regulars are prepared to come down into the streets in the old way. And it is not only boredom, or increasing suspicion of Russian motives (the Tito business has been educative for the sympathisers with the "French Renaissance "—one of the aliases adopted for the benefit of the gullible). Conditions are better and the weather keeps public temper sweet (unless you arc watching your orchard dry ur).
The visible signs of recovery are very impressive. The train service is now excellent ; trains are fast and on time, and it is a great convenience to be able to book seats and find edible food at station buffets again. It is possible that too much effort has been put into so complete a restoration of the old transport system. That is the opinion of the man best qualified to judge, M- Dautry. But
if you have been travelling in France every year since the liberation it is hard to be too severe. And in the same way such efforts of solid restoration as the rebuilding of the blitzed area of Compiegne, if they seem too solid, too durable for a country in France's condi- tion, do remind us of how often she has been invaded and ruined— and restored. But, as with us, the restoration is not being paid for completely by the restorer, and it is the task of the Government and the party leaders to get the consequences of this truth accepted by the temporarily cheerful rank and file. We are all in the same boat ; let us hope that the motto of Paris will prove to be ours, too. Fluctuat nec mergitur.
Previous page
