Mendes-France at the Helm
TAS, SAL
Mendes-France at the Helm By Sal Tas Paris The formation of a government by Pierre Mendes-France was a direct result of the fall of Dienbienphu, which gave the final push to the long-tottering...
...Therefore, he proposed to bring the opposing forces together and try to work out a compromise...
...But he did so only by following the line of least resistance on every problem...
...At first sight, the idea of a compromise seems nothing but another of the "alternatives" that have been discussed in the Assembly by EDC's opponents...
...He also promised the Assembly that, during the negotiations, his government would prepare the means which his successor would need to prosecute the war if his negotiations failed...
...Laniel's fall had caused such a thunder that, in the awful silence that followed, only a bold move was possible...
...Last July, Mendes-France got his first opportunity to seek investiture...
...Mendes-France probably thought so, too, and considered merely repeating last year's propagandistic move...
...The French voters are much less interested in EDC than the Deputies...
...For Morocco, Mendes-France calls for a complete revision of the policy that led to the expulsion of the former Sultan...
...As one mortgage after another was lifted from the Deputies, political life would become increasingly normal...
...The whole EDC bloc (the MRP, Radicals like Rene Mayer, the Socialists) refused to join the cabinet...
...I never believed that the Gaullists could be written off with the cliche label of right-wing...
...for the other Deputies, it was an expression of their desire for a change a moral change, a political change, a change for the better in some way...
...People who agree on one problem part company as soon as another turns up...
...But the atmosphere had changed greatly...
...This speech had wide repercussions, especially among the younger generation, for whom Mendes-France became the symbol of new hope amid the corrupt cliches of French politics...
...he is far too erudite to be anti-American...
...Quite probably, the first clash between the new government and the Assembly will take place on the North African question...
...There is much naivete, too, in his concept of foreign policy...
...The stillness in the country was all the more conspicuous because this lack of fury signified a deeper lack of interest in Parliament...
...That his cabinet leans toward the anti-EDC group is true...
...He was a middle-of-the-road man, but with progressive social concepts...
...he must give up...
...It also presaged the internationalization of the Indo-Chinese war a logical step which Laniel-Bidault-Pleven toyed with but never took...
...and it is the left-wing Gaullists who are represented in the present cabinet, together with the more progressive Radicals...
...At Berlin, the Western powers thought that by going to Geneva they could persuade China not to intervene in Indo-China, and thus facilitate an Indo-China peace on terms acceptable to the West...
...He said rejection of EDC would be a catastrophe for French prestige abroad, and that ratification of the treaty by a small majority might seriously disturb the unity of the nation...
...He became less and less popular in the Palais Bourbon as his gloomy forecasts on the French economy, on Indo-China, on North Africa were confirmed by gloomy facts...
...Second, Mendes-France sought a compromise between the leading groups...
...If the EDC bloc is firm...
...In North Africa, Mendes-France promised to re-establish order in regions now on the verge of civil war...
...but when de Gaulle refused to take the drastic measures he thought necessary, Mendes-France left the Government...
...The idea that foreign policy should be to a large extent a function of domestic strength is sound...
...He asked the Assembly to give him four weeks...
...The proposal embodying the compromise would be brought to the Assembly, which would be asked in any event to rule on EDC before the Parliamentary holidays start...
...The cool, restrained way in which he defined the Communist group as enemies of the fatherland, acolytes of the enemy, threw them right back into the quarantine from which they had just managed to escape...
...Besides, domestic strength is itself strongly influenced by the situation abroad...
...His talk about forgetting party lines and concentrating on personalities is just so many words...
...Then again, under the impact of his national reputation a majority may bow before him...
...This would mean he was sacrificing his domestic policy to his foreign policy...
...Unable to wage war, unable to seek peace, you must go," said Francois Mitterand, mouthpiece of the opposition...
...Mendes-France promised all-out negotiations for an armistice, but he refused capitulation...
...The Cabinet, which had committed itself to ratification of EDC, could not even bring itself to the decision to place EDC on the Assembly agenda...
...Recognizing that France had to modernize herself and that she would have to sacrifice to do so, he was the Stafford Cripps of France...
...It was silly for Washington to react to the new Premier with the sigh of relief that, anyhow, his government would be up for approval again in four weeks...
...Fear crept into the Assembly, fear of being forced to face the voters...
...Then Mendes-France proposed to tackle North Africa...
...By sticking dogmatically to his foreign-policy ideas, he could wreck all his chances for internal reforms...
...this will soon demonstrate itself abundantly...
...This, too, is Mendes-France's real field...
...This should not be sneered at...
...On the other hand, there is deep resentment among the colonial French...
...transformation...
...Once the French generals had thrown away the Government's last trumps in negotiations, Parliament had little reason to spare the Government, even though Bidault's line at Geneva could hardly be attacked in good faith...
...To overcome this, Mendes-France took the leading problems that faced him and separated them chronologically...
...But this cannot be drawn out to mean that the world must wait around while France is recovering, or that a government of renewal can do without a foreign policy...
...He cannot neglect blocs of votes...
...If not...
...His majority may well crack when his social and economic program comes up...
...But Mendes-France's policies do not differ appreciably from those of Anthony Eden...
...For some weeks, the Geneva Conference gave Laniel an alibi...
...For Tunisia, this means negotiations with Habib Bourguiba to grant the Tunisians a large measure of self-government and internal sovereignty...
...This turned his four-week proposal into an ultimatum to the Vietminh...
...At least a date for the debate is set, which is more than Laniel ever accomplished...
...Many thought Mendes-France would not get a majority...
...Elected at a time when the general mood of the voters was swinging to the right, the Assembly had only demonstrated the complete inability of its Right to form a majority of minimum stability...
...Already a campaign against Mendes-France, with anti-Semitic overtones, has begun in Tunisia and Morocco...
...This may be annoying, but it is not a French turn to the East...
...France has reached a stage in which a reform of the nation's political mores is even more important than solutions of immediate problems...
...if within that time a truce was not concluded, the Assembly was free to vote him down...
...If his government breaks down on an international problem before he shows what he can do at home, he will have failed inexorably...
...he even insisted on France's continued presence in Indo-China...
...Power has already begun to reshape his ideas...
...he never favored capitulation in Indo-China...
...And he may never get another chance...
...The principal factor in altering the Western position was the military struggle in Indo-China...
...The prestige enjoyed by Mendes-France and his friend Mitterand in African nationalist circles is such that high hopes have been raised among them...
...Already Mendes-France has given hope to the young in France...
...Mendes-France strongly underwrote the Atlantic alliance, but made two remarks and a proposal...
...finally, the internal transformation of France...
...He is an honest man...
...aid to France, and that the Laniel Cabinet, like its predecessors, disposed of this aid in ways that did not promote the renewal of the French economy...
...He was a minister in the first cabinet of General de Gaulle...
...It was a dangerous moment...
...The most conspicuous of the new ministers is the Minister of Defense, General Koenig, a Gaul-list who is fiercely anti-EDC...
...For such a task Mendes-France had much to recommend him...
...In this atmosphere, the majority accepted the direction of one of the very few members of Parliament whose political reputation was unblemished and who therefore could bring prestige to the much-compromised body...
...He used it to appeal to the entire nation with a broad program for the renewal of France...
...To think that Laniel's defeat means a reversal of France's Atlantic policy is sheer nonsense...
...Laniel, selected by Parliament for what everyone expected would be a short transitional period, managed to stumble on month after month...
...And Washington may legitimately speculate which is more useful: the conformist promises made by the shaky Laniel Cabinet which could never make good its pledges, or the less conformist commitment of a man who sets out to form an energetic, responsible government with real authority a man, furthermore, who may be capable of performing that miracle...
...Mendes-France at the Helm By Sal Tas Paris The formation of a government by Pierre Mendes-France was a direct result of the fall of Dienbienphu, which gave the final push to the long-tottering cabinet of Joseph Laniel...
...You cannot blame a parliament for voting down a government that has just presented it with a Stalingrad disaster...
...Feeling that the situation was too serious to play with, Mendes-France made a bold stroke, which succeeded...
...In the course of the Geneva Conference, our policy became a virtual bid for peace at any price short of capitulation...
...By investing Mendes-France, the Assembly replaced a government that had, at least formally, committed itself to EDC with a government uncommitted to ratification and pledged to seek a compromise...
...All this Mendes-France is now learning...
...At the same time, he announced that he would reopen negotiations with the nationalist leaders...
...That the Communists still voted for him made Mendes-France's attacks on them all the more biting and effective...
...Mendes-France refused Communist support in a way that should be a lesson for Socialists like Naegelen and Le Troquer, who accepted it some months ago...
...The party split some time ago...
...If he fails, who has a decent alternative...
...then EDC...
...If he succeeds, it will be a revolution...
...Moreover, Mendes-France has never been a neutralist...
...Mendes-France's greatest task is the transformation of backward France into a modern nation capable of facing European competition...
...He had a good grasp of France's economic problems...
...The real paradox of Mendes-France's position, however, is this: He wants France to concentrate on internal...
...The refusal of the EDC bloc to join his cabinet left Mendes-France with whatever Radicals he could get and with the Gaullists...
...This gesture, rare in French parliamentary history, gave him great prestige...
...He is the man who must fulfill Mendes-France's promise that the war can be prosecuted if present negotiations fail...
...I will not deny that there is a lot of dangerous naivete in Mendes-France...
...As he put it, his compromise would merely seek another form for German rearmament...
...This explains the resistance to Mendes-France by the adherents of EDC, particularly in the MRP, which was demonstrated when he formed his cabinet...
...the terrorist activities there probably will not cease until the Sultan is brought back...
...But from France's internal stagnation he draws conclusions in the field of foreign policy which prevent him from uniting those who could support his domestic reforms...
...then, they cannot be overruled...
...Both he and Parliament would have been damaged by a repetition of last year's fruitless effort...
...But Koenig is also the man who two years ago proposed that the "contingents" the French draftees who cannot now be sent outside Europe be dispatched to Indo-China to force a rapid victory...
...If the second remark was not true, the first unquestionably was and that fact brought down Laniel...
...The election of Mendes-France was, for the Right, a flight from the responsibilities that lay in wait for the government to come...
...Rene Pleven took Mendes-France's Cabinet post, thus launching a career of clever moves along the line of least resistance, while Mendes-France assumed the role of Cassandra...
...They were, in any case, closest to his program of internal transformation...
...As everyone wanted a truce in Indo-China, he proposed to tackle that first...
...We may hope that power will sober him...
...to force his compromise through Parliament by a small majority would be as distasteful to him as ratifying EDC in that fashion...
...Both probably share the same illusions on China...
...On this question, Mendes-France will be quite vulnerable, because he will already have the neutralists against him...
...We should also remember that the Indo-China war gave a special turn to U.S...
...Dienbienphu climaxed a year of weak and uninspiring government in which lukewarm advocacy of EDC alternated with hesitancy in all other fields...
...There is no stable majority in the French Assembly...
...The result is the endless chain of governmental crises, as different majorities arise on different questions...
...Now he has received his second chance...
...Two qualifications should be noted...
...This means that his effort can succeed only if the EDC adherents accept it...
...Steps to conciliate the African nationalists will be answered by desperate action by the French colons, who have powerful allies in Parliament, especially in Mendes-France's own Radical party...
...Examining Mendes-France's program, one must say that it offers Washington less, in words at least, than the Laniel Government did...
...It is easy to understand how a man so committed to internal renewal could lapse into rancorous remarks about the connection between the American-supported Indo-Chinese war and France's stagnation...
...In foreign policy, his government was often influenced by America, but this was not the only influence...
...The fact is that he will have to work with the parties, as the formation of his cabinet showed...
...Mendes-France gave the Communists the severest trouncing they ever received in Parliament...
...it underlined his promise to pursue the Atlantic alliance, his refusal to capitulate, his demand for German rearmament...
...The Mendes-France experiment therefore deserves great sympathy...
...it is too early to tell...
...New elections, if held, would be fought out on the issue of EDC, but they would be decided, as always, by social and economic interests...
...In the field of European policy...
...The old politicians lacked the courage to go on and chose to let the renewer fail first...
...First, Mendes-France accepted, even demanded German rearmament...
...Washington's second reaction was much better...
...Looking at the people in his cabinet, I see no reason for pessimism...
...If the EDC bloc maintains its opposition, then a vote for a compromise would simply be a vote to reject the treaty a rejection which Mendes-France has publicly declared would be a catastrophe...
Vol. 37 • July 1954 • No. 27
