FRANCE WANTS A NEW DEAL

Byi Bernard Prentis
NOTHING that M. Schuman ' can do will now alter the fact that from this last Cabinet crisis the present form of Parliamentary Government in France has received a blow from which it will recover only with difficulty. Its recovery will, finally, owe nothing to the blind and opinionated bunch of politicians who have played musical chairs in the cabinet of the Government of a great country until their gyrations have not only sickened their own people, but made all intelligent and sympathetic observers of the game giddy with their circlings. France wants a new deal not a reshuffle.
Since the liberation there have been twelve governments. The 13th is being formed as we go to press. In each approximately the same band of political leaders has moved round giving a place here, gaining a place there, until the attempt to follow the business of Government has become almost impossible.
Only one point has emerged in three years from this " parliamentary game " and that is so obvious that it can hardly be called a gain, or an advance. This is that the representatives of the crude dictatorship of the left, the Communists, the friends of Soviet Russia led by the noble patriot who spent the best part of the war in Moscow have been excluded. But equally the representative of a firmer democratic regime, General de Gaulle, the leader of Free France, has been forced to retire to watch from a distance the absurd comings and goings.
A Stable Government and Any Plan
AFTER the Myer plan for con
trolled economy, the Reynaud plan, and neither had time to come to birth, let alone achieve the results -which each, in its measure, would surely have done if enforced with vigour and given a stable Government to do it.
Meanwhile the cost of living in France goes up and wages lag well behind, and between the central Government and the organs of local Government there exists a state of cold war because at the last municipal elections the popular vote went well and truly to the Rally of the French 'People led by de Gaulle. The warning was there, but it has passed unheeded. The political leaders have continued to give promises of support with their eyes not firmly set to see the present common good, or the future wellbeing of their country, but glancing back and forth to office and political prestige and to votes.
Meanwhile in a country which wants only a firm and stable Government and a currency reform to support itself in food there is real social distress.
Who Is To Blame?
F OR the present sorry spectacle French Socialists, anti-clerical and materialist, greater in numbers in parliament, in political power and influence, than their present following in the country warrants, must stand primarily re sponsible. Willing to ally themselves first with M.R.P. then with the Communists, it is they who have in fact made a farce of parliamentary government in the IV Republic. But the Popular Republican Movement (M.R.P.), the predominantly Catholic party, which was horn of the Resistance Movement and the rise of new Catholic leaders of the working class demanding a reorganisation along Christian "Socialist " lines, must bear some measure of blame.
They have betrayed the ideals for which the movement stood in a series of compromises, and retreats most notably in the question of Catholic schools. They joined with the older parliamentary parties with unnecessary enthusiasm to undo the work of internal reorganisation, planned and in part effected, under the Vichy regime without regard to its intrinsic value, moved only by its origin.
Nothing short of a miracle, in a department of life conspicuously free of God's direct intervention, can save the French political parties of the present series of Governments, from a resounding defeat in the next elections. General de Gaulle's rally of the French people or the Communists will win. It is unlikely to be the Communists.
Who Stand To Gain?
BUT the immediate prospect does give a new hope to the Communists, and they have not been long to appreciate it. Only the Communist Humanire appeared on Monday demanding the familiar " Democratic Union as the basis for a. Government in which Thorez should be Prime Minister. There have been clashes with the police, and the usual noisy demonstrations. .The return of Robert Schuman as Premier may ensure a withdrawal of the threat of strikes made by the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions, it will not much affect the still largely Comunist-dominated C.G.T.
Inside France disgust and apathy are a more common reaction than anger. The commonest is apathy, and in apathy the ruthlessly efficient Communist Party organisation wins.
The present grievances of the workers are substantial, the threat of the Reynaud's " gift to the peasants " to the immediate standard
of living was quite real. This is what will he exploited. The setting is perfect for Thorez to make a bid to regain lost ground.
It is extremely doubtful whether in the present state of world affairs, and in view of the recent Communist grabs in Eastern Europe the French Communists will be able to make good all their recent losses, but three points should be borne in mind. Though two of them are mutually destructive, so much are men prone to think what they want to think, that it would be foolish for that reason to overlook them.
Three Points
THE first is the fact of the spread of Communist and Russian Communist dominated regimes in
Eastern Europe. To the voter
who once voted Communist, it does in fact seem as if the spread of Communism is inevitable, as he is told it is. While the Western powers fumble towards unity, Russia switching the pressure first East then West and in the West. first here, and then there, does move on. She calls the tune in Berlin, and the Western envoys dance.
'rhe second point is that the Reynaud plan to return to a freer economy can make the price of Marshall Aid seem too high. It can, to former Communist supporters, seem that acceptance of American aid is conditional upon a complete return to American laisser fare capitalism, The third point is that Tito's stand for a Yugoslav National Communist State and the success attending his efforts to stave off Russian domination does, in fact, make it possible for the Communist parties in France and in Italy to adopt a similar position. With the tiny Communist body in Western Germany, French, Italian and Yugoslav Communists could reject utterly the accusation of domination by Russia, reject the accusations of being traitors and tools of Russian Imperialism and stand forth again, as after the Liberation, as patriots, nationalists and Communists. They could also, with Tito, look to the West for economic aid. Moreover they could look reasonably to a union of European Communist States.
The. outcome of such a development as this would cause some soul searching. It would quickly be apparent whether the chief enemy was an alien Godless philosophy and political tyranny—or the great power Russia. Even present indications would seem to show that it is not so much the tyranny or the
atheistic materialist philosophy which is hated and feared, as the potential war making power.
SPAIN AND THE MONARCHY
ILE the French IV Republic
seems intent on committing hara-kiri and leaving France to the mild dictatorship of General de Gaulle, Spain seems to be moving towards a restoration of the monarchy. It is too early yet to attempt to forecast the outcome of General Franco's latest meeting with Don Juan but one thing seems at least certain. Franco is not yet prepared to talk in terms of a constitutional monarchy as we think of it. And further, Don Juan in seizing on General Moscardo's reference to the royal family and the " aspirations of Spain to-day " would seem to allow this. The "Spain of To-day" according to General Franco is not ready for the game of parliamentary government, and the example of his nearest neighbour does nothing seriously td disturb his prejudice against it. As pointed out in this paper on many previous occasions Franco, whatever else may be said about him, is sincere and honest and responsible in exactly the senses in which politicians tend not to be. It is therefore already a distinct move in the right directions away from the purely ;sersonal dictatorship, that this preliminary 'talk should have taken place, and the breach between Franco and Don Juan healed. While it is not true that Franco is yielding to American pressure, which in point of fact he feels less than Britain or any of the nations in the European Recovery Programme, if the settling of the present constitutional problem would enable Spain to enter that wise and generous plan, not only Spain but the whole of European economy would benefit.