Faure's Last Stand
TAS, SAL
French rightist government, after fumbling along the path of least resistance for nine months, loses majority support when it seeks early elections FAURE'S LAST STAND By Sal Tas PARIS EDGAR...
...Under the district system, Mendes-France could personally endorse individual candidates who back his program over the heads of their party leaders...
...Though Faure was rarely a man of decision, seldom the embodiment of any positive program, he almost always personified those measures which at a given moment nobody dared not to take...
...Those who suffered most in 1951 were the Communists and Gaullists, both extremist parties at the time...
...Faure played the rebels' game...
...The convention of the Radical party, to which both Mendes-France and Faure belong, declared strongly for the single-member-district system (similar to that used to elect U.S...
...They gave the Moroccans, politically backward in many respects, a martyr and center of agitation...
...primaries, there is also a runoff between the two leading candidates if no one gets a majority in the first voting...
...It had lost the referendum in the Saar, it had been forced to yield in Morocco, and it had seen its puppet Bao Dai finally evicted from his throne in Vietnam...
...All these factors will play a part in the election struggle...
...The Socialists have not yet tamed the anti-Europeans in their Parliamentary group...
...The alliances helped small parties survive and enabled loose election groupings to deprive the isolated parties of seats...
...Some of his Cabinet foes were quite aware of his tactics and let themselves be dragged, meanwhile screaming loudly to their constituents...
...Proportional representation increases the power of party machines, but it also favors big parties and tends to decrease the number of small parties...
...Times changed...
...what turned it into cynicism was that at this very moment Faure was giving public assurances that ben Youssef would never return...
...And it was in absurdity that Faure's performance ended...
...Thus, with only a minor reshuffle in his cabinet, he succeeded in pushing both the Moroccan agreement and the return of ben Youssef through Parliament...
...But, though Parliament had swallowed ben Youssef's return, it had done so unhappily...
...But, by exiling the Sultan in 1953.the French accelerated that evolution...
...Not once did Faure put up a fight, denounce the intriguers, face his ministers and Parliament with their responsibilities...
...There is no doubt a strong urge in France for something new, something more efficient, modern and dignified...
...But the manner in which this is done shows French politics lagging far behind realities, and shows how far we are from a well-led France voluntarily moving toward well-chosen, realistic and attainable goals...
...The anti-Europeans are also anti-clerical, as the MRP is the only party which stood for EDC without a split, and they favor any electoral system that disadvantages the MRP...
...The party leaders then could divide the seats among themselves...
...Faure served the rightist majority even better than it asked...
...This was insight...
...The district system, which prevailed in the Third Republic, also permits alliances in the runoffs, as well as strategic withdrawals before the initial balloting...
...Congressmen...
...As a result, the Assembly was more to the right than the country...
...By personalizing politics, the French made it more accessible to the Moroccans...
...Take the Moroccan problem...
...Faure's tactics were even more characteristic...
...its spokesman) obviously hoped that, when all other possible systems were exhausted, the old 1951 law would be put to work again...
...All belong to the numerous adjustments to reality which France must make in any case...
...With the help of the upper house, the Council of the Republic, the district system scored a few points over proportional representation...
...Mendes-France balked...
...At the same time, they favor the district system because it brings them closer to Mendes-France...
...Some of them-helped by the colonial camarilla which occupied the highest posts in the Moroccan administration and the French Army--in-trigued quite openly against the majority of the Government: they created numerous faits accomplis which served to sabotage Cabinet policy...
...The result was a series of shifting majorities incapable of pursuing coherent policies...
...As for Morocco, it was bound to evolve away from the protectorate and toward freedom...
...The victorious Right lacked self-restraint and fiercely tried to turn the clock back...
...Faure is said to have replied...
...It might have increased Mendes-France's power over his own party as effectively as the district system he is now pushing...
...It had a Right-Center majority, and if this majority sometimes shifted, forcing Faure to skip across the ice like Eliza in Uncle Tom's Cabin, nonetheless majorities did not fail to appear for him...
...This is no disaster...
...Two undercurrents, survivals of the past, threaten to muddy the election campaign and even the next Assembly...
...Their worst misfortunes in recent years have occurred in the foreign field, and that is not their prime concern...
...When they were undeceived by the brutal facts, they rebelled in earnest...
...But the French people change slowly...
...Because to a large extent the anti-EDC front was also a front of appeasers of Russia, the Europeans strongly distrust the foreign policy of the anti-Europeans...
...things have changed since he was Premier, and politicians are less afraid of him...
...Since the defeat of EDC, almost every party has been split into "Europeans" and "anti-Europeans...
...The story runs that a friend complained to Faure that his policy of appeasing Morocco would inevitably lead to the return of Sultan ben Youssef...
...Faure talked this way because he hoped thus to disarm his foes within the Cabinet and drag them, against their will, along the road of the inevitable...
...Mendes-France himself has not yet succeeded in curbing the right wing of the Radical party, many of whose leaders are strong enough locally to be re-elected against his wishes...
...On the other hand, the district system favors individual personalities and local issues, both staples of the Radical party for decades...
...Edgar Faure's government typified this process...
...The current Assembly was elected in 1951 under a system of proportional representation modified by party alliances...
...Until now, the French people have remained rather mute spectators of the drama unfolding in the Palais Bourbon...
...Actually, any system can serve Left or Right...
...An able Cabinet minister, Faure lacked what it takes to be a leader- which, one must record, is precisely why the Assembly chose him to replace Mendes-France...
...The urge is especially strong among French youth...
...The majority groups then tried a new tack: They accepted the district system, but demanded reapportionment...
...Faure's Center-Right coalition cabinet had passed the nine-month mark and was, quite understandably, feeling the nine-month itch...
...It is doubtful that new elections can change much if the school problem is not solved and if there is no Left-Center agreement on a solid foreign policy of close and loyal integration with NATO...
...The Socialists hope to form a new Left around Christian Pineau...
...one of their ablest leaders...
...Faure would show France that the Right could stand cleverness: but he would not ask the price of cleverness-namely, action along the lines of insight...
...What was most unfortunate, however, is that these adjustments have not been made voluntarily but were thrust on France, which was still bumbling along the paths of least resistance...
...Even Frenchmen in power realized that Bao Dai was an impossible figure: but Paris asked for punishment by clinging to him as the intcrlocuteiir valable, the only admissible partner in discussions...
...Thus far, Mendes-France has not dared drop the illusion of Algerian "integration" and boldly advocate internal autonomy, and even the Socialists are divided...
...The Communists may, under another electoral system, increase their seats without increasing their vote...
...Or, to be more accurate, he succeeded in having outside events push them through...
...Its left wing was maimed, its center uneasy...
...This was fiercely resented by the Socialists and Radicals, both with a distinguished anti-clerical heritage, and thus caused a split between them and the Catholic MRP...
...After negotiations with the nationalists of Tunisia and Morocco, it was logically Algeria's turn...
...Without the alliance system, the two parties might have won a majority of seats and would have been able to bring down any democratic government...
...In writing off unnecessary or untenable commitments, France objectively consolidates herself...
...For the lower classes, on the other hand, economic improvement has not been spectacular enough to cause any dramatic shift of workers' votes from the Communists to the Socialists...
...after all, stealing seats surreptitiously from the Communists is not necessarily the best way to fight them...
...French rightist government, after fumbling along the path of least resistance for nine months, loses majority support when it seeks early elections FAURE'S LAST STAND By Sal Tas PARIS EDGAR FAURE'S proposal to dissolve the National Assembly and hold new elections in December came at a psychologically opportune moment...
...Nevertheless, the way France behaved in each case managed to lend all three the stamp of grave defeats...
...Instead, by replacing political and moral authority with parliamentary dexterity, Faure succeeded only in becoming a pastiche of Mendes-France...
...This feeling is typical of the present Assembly, and...
...And the French have developed such possessive feelings toward Algeria that huge obstacles have been placed in the way of solving this problem...
...Without some MRP support, however, the Left parties will be hard pressed to form a majority...
...Thus, the anti-Europeans among the Socialists, for example, foster anti-Catholicism and oppose proportional representation because it would help the MRP...
...The first is the parochial-school issue...
...his virtuoso circus in fact carried its political system ad absurdum...
...As a matter of fact, the merits and demerits of the various electoral systems have been somewhat exaggerated...
...Never did he force them to give (or refuse) him the power he needed to catch up with events, to negotiate concessions from strength rather than register losses passively...
...No election law can produce a two-party system if a people lacks a tradition of thinking in terms of two parties...
...This had to be changed, and the general opinion was, therefore, that the electoral law should be changed...
...Parliament was discussing reform of the election laws, and nearly everyone agreed that the present system was unworkable...
...There are indeed some rotten boroughs in France, especially in the South, but it was easy to foresee the consternation which redistricting would cause among so many Assemblymen whom it directly threatens...
...None of these developments, as I said, is fatal in itself...
...The two undercurrents have played a considerable role in the electoral debates...
...it all depends on the strength and direction of public opinion...
...But much will depend on the outcome of the elections...
...None of these developments could have been prevented, nor was any of them a disaster in itself...
...Mendes-France and his followers hope to break up the alliances which created the present majority...
...Some time ago, the Right pushed through a subsidy for Catholic schools...
...Scenting trouble and knowing that his acrobatics on Morocco had consumed the good will of the Right, Faure decided to force early elections...
...It was a time to take stock if ever there was one, for rarely had France lived through such an eventful and unfortunate period...
...and Paris could hardly have expected them to vote "European" after she herself had killed the European Defense Community...
...The Moroccan agreement might have become the counterpart of Mendes-France's bold policy in Tunisia...
...In the last three months, it had suffered major defeats abroad...
...But it was hard to expect a Parliamentary majority to change the law that had produced its majority...
...Under this system, any combination of party lists which together won a majority in the department received all the seats of the department...
...De Gaulle left politics, and most of the Gaullists became model parliamentary conservatives...
...as past elections show, often typical of the French people as a whole...
...The way Faure maneuvered his cabinet past the gauntlet of debates, revolts, repressions and defeats is virtually a textbook illustration of what can be done by ability without, authority...
...The result was an enormous loss of prestige-not only for Faure's government but for France -and an even more grievous loss of human life, for Morocco was in bloody revolt while Faure was maneuvering...
...It was natural that the Germans of the Saar would vote German once they had exhausted the benefits of French rule...
...He did not expose these intrigues, but merely circumvented them, expecting that time and the Moroccans would force his Cabinet foes to give up...
...In the past, Mendes-France has committed himself so definitely on both problems that it may be very difficult for him to be accepted as leader of a new Left...
...Let us not underestimate Faure's ability or insight- especially on the Moroccan question, which he knew well...
...The second undercurrent is that of foreign policy...
...The Communists meanwhile remained a fifth column...
...In France, as in some U.S...
...Economically, the situation is slowly improving-which also works for the status quo...
...The way Faure did this was again most agile...
...Once one of the Radical "Young Turks" (along with Mendes-France), tinged by modern insights but not driven by them, clever enough to see the larger problems but skeptical enough to sacrifice them to the realities of Parliamentary power, Faure was the ideal successor in an atmosphere still vibrating with the shocks of Mendes-France's tenure...
...Others, more honest but less bright, took Faure's assurances literally...
...So the Assembly discussed and rejected one new electoral plan after another...
...There are both Socialists and Catholics who realize the disastrous consequences of the school struggle, but thus far they have been unable to curb the demagogy this issue has raised in both camps...
...Whether Mendes-France's personal blessing will be as effective as he assumes is doubtful...
...Did you really doubt his return for a moment...
...Is French public opinion clearly defined today...
...The majority (and Faure...
...he, too, enjoyed speaking of "reconstruction" and "renewal...
...When Faure took office last winter, he hoped not only to succeed, but to supersede, Pierre Mendes-France...
Vol. 38 • December 1955 • No. 48
