FRANCE'S PERENNIAL CRISIS

...But you Americans may rightfully ask again: "Very well, but if all is going so beautifully over there, why do we hear so much about troubles, about unrest, about political instability, about unforeseen upsets of the government...

...The assistance which has been so generously poured out since the war by the great republic of the United States has not been a vain sacrifice...

...that is, the number of unemployed is very small...

...It covers, in great part, the special expenses incurred for re-equipment of the country...

...Business is doing well...

...But do people see our success...

...Now they are exploiting to the limit, in their assaults on the Government, the very real budgetary, financial and fiscal difficulties which obtain in France...

...Americans may well ask: "How is it that the French, who have so much to do before they can get their affairs in running order, can't make up their minds to settle down quietly and go to work...

...The Government of the United States...

...During the past three years both communism' and Gaullism have suffered a definite decline...

...They have banked on a social and economic crisis which, thanks to the Marshall Plan, has not come...

...But the fight has been carried on, and without boasting, I think, we can say, it has been successful...

...Comparative security encourages discussion, difference, and splintering...

...Isn't it possible that we are simply wasting our yood money...

...and it is largely because of this investment that our production has grown so satisfactorily...

...When I returned from Germany in 1945, hardly alive myself, I found an exhausted country, a land in which all of the vital functions of national existence seemed to have ceased...

...This combination included the Socialists, the MRP (that is, the Christian Democrats and the leftist radicals), plus certain elements of the center...

...The cost of government constantly increases...

...Yes, she has now recovered her vital energies...

...In general, the capacity for consumption has not regained what may be regarded as its normal level...

...Her tasks are still heavy...

...But—and of this I am firmly convinced — once the danger becomes evident, the old spirit will reappear...

...Today Frarict is re-animated...

...Can't they ever get their political machine operating smoothly...

...The Third Force was thus pledged from the start to fight on two fronts, and that double campaign rendered its operations as difficult and as dangerous as they were necessary...

...It is also true that the employment situation is very satisfactory...

...These industrial capitalists who, since the liberation, have held their heads pretty low, think the time has come for them to snatch from the working class the advantages it won through passage of modern social legislation, and also to resume toward the Government their traditional position of big brother and trusted adviser...

...If they are forever getting upset, what is the use continuing the aid which the United States has so liberally been pouring out since the war...

...Since M. Blum's article was re. ceived, the Socialists have withdrawn from the Bidault Govment...

...But it does not include our extraordinary expenses lor reconstruction...

...What has taken taken place is a transformation, practically a resurrection...

...I want to begin with this last point, and I hope I can discuss it in a way that will leave no doubt in American minds...

...She is throwing her energy against such terrific obstacles that her friends should be able to understand the restlessness, the instability of which the political vicissitudes are the expression...

...Where would we have been without it...

...On the other side it must be said that wages, relief payments, pensions and other payments to workers are at a low level...

...THERE IS PROBABLY no American figure equivalent to the Frenchman Leon Blum...

...Ed] This grouping was formed some three years ago among the parties and men resolved, at all hazards and by any necessary means, to prevent the victory of Stalinist communism or of the Bonapartist movement which had grown up around General de Gaulle...

...These two enemies of democracy have been joined by a new ally, the reactionary employers...

...The present government, headed by Georges Bidault, was set up and supported by a parliamentary majority which is made up of what we call the Third Force...

...The Communists and Gaullists, of course, are still in the ring...

...The national income has far from increased in proportion...

...Yes, another of those French political crises .which seem to be constantly treading on each other's heels...

...When, at the end of last year, the leaders of the Government discussed the need of raising taxes and balancing the budget, they found themselves facing a citizenry among whom talk of greater burdens is most unwelcome...

...During the past four years France has been transformed...

...Yes, France has managed to surmount the terrible difficulties left by the departure of the foreign foe, largely, it is true, by virtue of American help...

...That history has frequently been tragic, but the septuagenarian Blum, is not content to play the role of elder statesman or Cassandra, and with characteristic hope in the future continues to fight every day for a happier France and a happier world...

...The total revenue of .the country has, comparatively speaking, decreased...

...But she has not yet reached her goal...

...Danger imposed discipline, supplied a purpose...

...and the American tax-payers — who have borne the burden of cost — may look upon the results with satisfaction...

...Certainly the Marshall Plan has given us a lift...

...And these plotting nllies find facing them a political combination wearied with its many struggles and already showing signs of division...

...For the first time in a long period it has achieved a commercial balance...

...Statistics bear out what the eyes behold...

...It is easy to understand why, under such circumstances, popular protest easily transforms itself into violent parliamentary movements...

...The double peril to democratic forces has become less menacing...

...It is our success itself which makes our situation so confused and so difficult to understand...

...French production now surpasses the records of the best prewar year...

...Let them try to picture the destruction of men, of animals, of equipment, of buildings, of houses, o£ money and valuables...

...And this budget has been swollen during the past two or three years by the unfortunate Indo-Chinese war and by the flood of costs connected with putting Western Europe in a stale of defense...

...I am speaking of a general balance, not particularly of a balance in relation to the dollar area...

...More than one American traveler has noted the change...

...By the time this article appears, my American readers will be able to judge whether I have sinned by being over-optimistic...

...the American workers—who played a decisive part in supporting the Marshall Plan...

...TO MAKE MYSELF CLEAR to Americans, I wish to say this about the matter of political instability...

...I believe that then we shall witness the defeat of this new combination of Communists, Gaullists and reactionaries —actually a political monstrosity...

...Yes, she has her face turned toward productive labor and progress...

...Since the liberation the franc has been steadily going down in value, and prices have never stopped going up...

...IN THE FIRST PLACE, production figures are among the essential elements in a country's economic situation, but they are not the whole of the picture...

...The question is a natural one...

...It is true that production in France has gone up considerably and that it continues to go up...

...The word,v "change," in fact, is too feeble and colorless to convey the idea of what has happened...

...This explains the contrast between the business or economic situation and the financial position of the Government...

...But just because the danger is disappearing, it becomes more and more difficult to hold together the heterogeneous combination to which the victory must be attributed...

...Leader of the French Socialist party in the interwar years and since, twice premier of his country and virtually a permanent cabinet minister, a resistance fighter and Nazi captive, a famed scholar and litterateur, Blum's career reads like a political and intellectual history of twentieth century France...

...Do they believe in the strength of our organizations...

...I am writing this article to give a clear and simple answer...

...Those Americans who did not take part in the fighting in France, or who have not made a trip to our shores within the post five years, should try to imagine the state to which the occupation and the liberation reduced this country, the extent to which it had been pillaged and destroyed...

...The blood flows through her arteries, her muscles have again found their oldtime vigor, she breathes, she works, she produces...

...But this great plan does not cover, in any respect, the regular items of the French budget...

...But the credit of the Government and the fiscal situation, even though they may have improved somewhat during the past couple of years, remain extremely difficult and problematical...

...On both fronts the enemies of democracy have been beaten back...