The Death of the Fourth Republic
TAS, SAL
The Death of the Fourth Republic By Sal Tas How General de Gaulle came to power Paris The Fourth French Republic was not strangled; it choked on steak and wine. The National Assembly's...
...The Communists, by their behavior in this crisis, showed that all their hard revolutionary talk was but talk, and that they were a paper organization, an electoral machine, just like the Socialists and Radicals...
...Socialist leader Guy Mollet was involved, directly or indirectly, in various combinations designed to replace Pflimlin's government by one that would include the Independents and would be headed by himself...
...The Assembly debate began again in the evening in an atmosphere of mounting suspicion...
...Mollet failed to appear because he could no longer dispose of the Socialist vote in Parliament...
...Much was made of the menace of a Popular Front, but I think the chance of that was slight...
...That night, de Gaulle suddenly appeared in Paris...
...They plan an invasion of France...
...The National Assembly's acceptance of General Charles de Gaulle was the product of an intricate series of maneuvers, but it also sprang from the deep unwillingness of the French to defend their Parliament...
...But none of these measures were taken...
...Following the ukases from Moscow, they made not the slightest positive contribution to French politics and did more than any other group to discredit parliamentary democracy...
...A Franco-type coup and/or civil war can only be avoided if de Gaulle becomes Premier legally...
...So he would quit in either case...
...At this point, Mollet immediately scrapped the various combinations with which he had been playing and —with one of those quick turns that distinguish his political style—decided that only de Gaulle could save the country...
...The island of Corsica by itself is of little importance, but the gesture was ominous: The extremist politicians in Algeria were getting the upper hand...
...that would create a power vacuum that could then be clandestinely occupied by de Gaulle...
...Thus, Mollet concluded, you must choose between General de Gaulle and General Jacques Massu with his Algerian paratroopers...
...Again Mitterand led the fight...
...Now a constitutional reform needs a two-thirds majority, and it was practically impossible to get a two-thirds majority without counting the Communist votes...
...Speakers belonging to Pflimlin's own majority declared that they could not understand why the Premier distinguished between General Salan and the rebels in Algeria—-who, Pflimlin said, were acting in agreement with the Government—and the rebels of Corsica—who, Pflimlin said, were genuine rebels...
...He announced that he had successfully opened negotiations for the formation of a republican government...
...They will continue to catch some half-baked intellectuals, but they can hardly remain the hope of the energetic part of the French people...
...While the Committee, to be sure, could not have mobilized 250,000 people without the Communist-led workers, it is also true that the Communists could not have mobilized anything resembling that kind of a demonstration had not the democratic forces represented in the Vigilance Committee taken the clear lead that they did...
...Facing the twin dangers of the Algiers mutineers and de Gaulle's bid for power, Mollet thought he could stave off de Gaulle by assuaging the generals in Algiers...
...Surely the mutineers were thoroughly shaken on the second day, when the Assembly invested Pflimlin with a large majority and thus refused to give in to the mutineers' demands...
...Meanwhile, the Socialist group in Parliament rebelled against the leadership of Mollet...
...So Pflimlin was assured that he could resign no matter what happened...
...It was all too clever to succeed...
...For the Socialists were isolated...
...its generals have already informed the Defense Minister that they will not fight against their comrades from Algeria...
...Meanwhile, President Coty sent a message to the Assembly warning that he would resign if they did not approve the investiture of de Gaulle...
...De Gaulle, in reply, had traveled to Paris, but had gone home after a night of waiting, for Mollet never showed up...
...Before this naive illusion could be tested, a small group of Algerian rebels, headed by Pascal Arrighi, the Parliamentary deputy for Corsica, landed in Ajaccio and took power in the name of de Gaulle...
...Whom did he meet...
...Thus, to a large extent the French people elected deputies who would either defend their own narrow interests or (at least) bait the regime on their behalf...
...It was the first time in French history that a candidate Premier used the President of the Republic as a chef de cabinet...
...He refused to leave the Palais Bourbon, he said, unless he received guarantees that the Government would not take advantage of the absence of the deputies to resign...
...If on the first day of the revolt—May 13—the Government had acted vigorously against the Algiers generals, the latter might have submitted and the crisis might have passed...
...Between Mollet's prodding, Coty's ultimatum and the Auriol correspondence, enough Socialists were won over to make negotiations with de Gaulle possible...
...To make this maneuver completely watertight, Pflimlin announced that he would not count Communist votes in his favor, since the Communist party stood against the nation...
...The Catholic MRP was willing to follow them but, quite understandably after all of Mollet's maneuvers behind Pflimlin's back, they wished to wait until the Socialist decision was made...
...But Pflimlin remained silent...
...The Socialists continued to hold out, but their capitulation was only a matter of time...
...Socialists and Radicals (and, of course, Communists) begged the Government to disavow all illusions and take a firm stand against General Salan, Pflimlin's reply was evasive and obscure, and once again cost the Government prestige...
...While de Gaulle waited at Colombey, Coty negotiated on his behalf with the party leaders on the program which he would present...
...Pflimlin received a resounding majority, 408 to 156...
...A typical Palais Bourbon scenario was devised to accomplish this transfer of power...
...But those same deputies presented an accurate mirror of the French people itself...
...instead, there were useless, fruitless palavers, combinations and intrigues which resulted in everybody losing heart...
...We shall see what remains of the popular enthusiasm when the General tackles the Algerian problem which, more than any other, caused the death of the Fourth Republic...
...But a substantial number of the demonstrators were Communists, who hoped thus to lay the foundations for a Popular Front...
...The majority of Socialist deputies were to hold to this course till the end of the crisis...
...The Army in Metropolitan France cannot be trusted...
...Had the Government acted in this manner, I doubt that the Algerian generals would have had the nerve to try an invasion...
...Premier Pflimlin tried to react to the Corsican coup, but his basic weakness now asserted itself...
...The Right—the conservative Independent party led by Antoine Pinay—played a continuous game of blackmail at the expense of the democratic Left and Center...
...Mollet pressed Pflimlin to contact de Gaulle and efface himself in favor of the general...
...Life was good for this people a decade after the war, and thus nobody took politics very seriously...
...The rightists knew that, if they joined forces with the Communists, they could overthrow any government...
...Rank-and-file Socialist deputies pleaded with Pflimlin: Stay in power...
...Mollet had left the Palais Bourbon in order to escape dangerous questions...
...Understandably disappointed by their Parliament and somehow unable to elect a better one, millions simply withdrew in indifference...
...And former President Vincent Auriol, a venerable Socialist, sent a letter to de Gaulle which drew a fairly reassuring reply—reassuring enough to save face for many Socialists...
...Once again, had the Government undertaken to organize a real popular resistance, with the democratic trade unions working in cooperation with the police force, it might have regained the confidence of the Metropolitan Army...
...If the reform was adopted, Pflimlin would remind the Assembly of his promise to resign when the reform was voted— in order to show all and sundry that he wished the reform for France, not for himself...
...we are behind you...
...the Socialist leaders had given no lead...
...From that moment on, de Gaulle's path was assured...
...They took cover in the demonstration organized by the Vigilance Committee...
...The Pflimlin Government did not react to this, but the Assembly did...
...In fact, the situation had become hopeless for the Socialists by this time, even though de Gaulle, who had declared he wanted a legal investiture by a big majority, needed the Socialist votes...
...Obviously, they hoped to save their organization and their popular appeal by making a token resistance...
...The revolt in Corsica is the fruit of the revolt in Algiers," said the Left-Center deputy Frangois Mitterand, an ally of Radical leader Pierre Mendes-France...
...The Government had given no lead...
...His hesitant attitude toward the rebels—and particularly toward General Raoul Salan, commander of the Army in Algeria— had weakened Pflimlin's authority among state officials to such a degree that he was unable to send a military party to Corsica to re-establish order...
...The deputies went home...
...If, on the other hand, the reform was rejected, Pflimlin would have to resign as the consequence of his defeat...
...He had held out firmly for a week after the Algiers coup, surrounded though he was by weaklings and intriguers...
...and so even the success of the demonstration organized by the Vigilance Committee had little meaning...
...Suddenly, the next day, with the Assembly ready to debate the constitutional reform, the wire services brought a communique from de Gaulle...
...The Communists themselves showed little fighting spirit...
...The Pflimlin Government would summon the Assembly, propose a number of measures to reinforce the power of the Cabinet, and then introduce a bill for constitutional reform, strengthening the powers of the Prime Minister...
...He will certainly disappoint many, for all shades of opinion claim him for their program...
...A Committee of Republican Vigilance was created, and a mass demonstration organized for the following day...
...As for de Gaulle himself, he has received six months to clear up the mess—and the mess itself was the strongest argument for him among the mass of the people...
...More than 250,000 men and women—including Mendes-France and the Socialist ex-Foreign Minister, Christian Pineau —had marched in an orderly, dignified demonstration for the republic...
...Even before the seizure of Corsica on May 24, the first symptoms of wavering had become apparent in the behavior of Catholic Premier Pierre Pflimlin...
...Pflimlin went to the Elysee Palace and handed in his resignation to President Rene Coty...
...The Socialists distrust the Communists thoroughly...
...It soon became clear that the big swing to de Gaulle had been launched by Guy Mollet, who had more or less forced Pflimlin to follow his line...
...They went under much like the German Communist party in 1933, except that the conditions are much less tragic...
...In this atmosphere, the Assembly voted on the constitutional reform...
...Again Mollet went into action...
...And the politicians elected to defend them proved as inadequate in handling the revolt of European settlers and generals in Algiers that started on May 13 as they had been in coping with the revolt of Algerian Moslems that began in November 1954...
...They themselves went fishing...
...And the democrats were paralyzed by the fear of Communist domination...
...The people in his entourage toyed with the idea that Mollet, heading a government of national union, could go to Algiers with the super-patriot Socialist Max Le-jeune and win over the generals...
...The deputies who had never had the courage to denounce the Algerian war have now been swallowed up by it...
...The Socialists suffered the worst possible kind of defeat, a major moral blow...
...Although Mollet and Lejeune are in de Gaulle's government, the rank-and-file is deeply split and the future of the party as an effective unified body is in serious doubt...
...The Algerian war dragged on, but the only political action taken by the man on the street was tax evasion...
...But soon Pflimlin began to yield...
...If the Government then had isolated de Gaulle or forced him to denounce the mutiny, it could again have reinforced its position...
...Nobody knew...
...And, basically, they are not very different...
...They used this technique (overthrowing four governments in the last two years alone) to preserve the privileges of an egotistic middle class, which repaid them over the years with increasing electoral support...
...Mollet had written a letter to de Gaulle, asking what guarantees de Gaulle would give for the preservation of democracy...
...Meanwhile, the French workers had elected 150 deputies—Communists —who did nothing but vote against every government...
...By an almost unanimous vote, it rejected any move in favor of de Gaulle...
...The negotiations were "successful" enough for Mollet, Pflimlin and Pinay to join the de Gaulle Government...
...For the first time, the rebellion had been transferred to metropolitan soil...
...It could have organized some sort of resistance against a possible paratroop invasion, thus giving the paratroopers the burden of opening fire against Frenchmen...
...The General was invested by a fair majority (329 to 224) ; Mitterand, Mendes-France and Pineau were among the 70 democratic leftists who voted against him on the ground that the Assembly had been coerced...
...The Metropolitan Army will certainly obey him, and this will forestall an invasion by the Algerian Army...
...From the start, the Assembly was suspicious...
...He came before the Socialist deputies and stated his position as follows: The extremists in Algiers are getting the upper hand...
...But this did not prevent the workers from voting for them, even after the Hungarian revolt...
Vol. 41 • June 1958 • No. 23
