Showdown for the Gaullists
HERALD, GEORGE W.
THE COMING FRENCH ELECTIONS Showdown for the Gaullists By George W Herald Paris Whatever people may say about the decline of parliamentarism under General Charles de Gaulle, it seems...
...But he is no slave of the Constitution, for the Constitution is merely an instrument to serve the needs of the people, not the other way around...
...Socialist leader Guy Mollet expressed their viewpoint when he declared: "We have no desire to return to the Fourth Republic, but neither do we feel that we need a 'guide' to run our affairs...
...In the area between the Italian and Spanish borders, a chain of 14 departments voted against him...
...According to French electoral law, a candidate can win in the first round only if he obtains more votes than all his rivals put together...
...France now has such a guide, and no one can say that he has curtailed civil liberties...
...The crews are suspected of having deliberately ruined Malraux's telecast in order to protest against the use of the TV medium by Government propagandists...
...Nationalism-not internationalism-is the motor force of the century...
...Under these conditions, few French experts believe that the UNR can win an absolute majority in the new parliament...
...The new body, which seems to be endowed with ample funds, is campaigning for all candidates running under the Gaullist label...
...Political parties tend to defend special interests, not those of the country as a whole...
...This time there are many areas where the opposition parties plan to put up a single candidate in the second round...
...With an average of five contestants for each seat, this probably will not happen very often...
...According to Le Monde, "The UNR will be lucky if it wins enough seats to control a majority in parliament together with the MRP Catholics...
...With this target in mind, the Gaullists have founded the "Association for the Fifth Republic...
...Certainly, it is true that the French television network has been in a state of latent crisis for weeks because its employes-including most of the journalists-resent serving as tools of a cause they do not espouse...
...The Malraux incident cast new light on the fact that television has become one of the main props of the Fifth Republic...
...The people of Alsace-Lorraine especially wanted to express their gratitude for his policy of Franco-German reconciliation...
...If all of them did, the Union for the New Republic (UNR) and its affili??tes would win 300 of the 465 seats, thereby permitting the General to run the country as he sees fit...
...Today many Southerners feel that de Gaulle had no right to change the Constitution by referendum against the advice of all legal authorities...
...But the entire Eastern region has greatly profited from the French economic "miracle," and, together with Normandy and Brittany, it secured de Gaulle's referendum victory...
...they are telling these sympathizers, meaning that they should now cast their ballots in favor of candidates who support de Gaulle's policies...
...Considering, too, that over 400,000 Algerian refugees have settled around Marseilles and Toulouse, there seems little likelihood of the Gaullists winning the elections in the South...
...As this credo was being broadcast over the State-run television network, something odd happened...
...Thus the Gaullists have decided to concentrate their main efforts in the North and Center of France, above the Loire valley...
...What was needed was a guide who could make decisions untrammeled by partisan opposition or legalistic pettiness...
...Apparently the post of Deputy ($1,400 per month, plus many special privileges) still carries a lot of prestige in France, for among the contestants are not only all the old political fixtures-from Paul Reynaud to Maurice Thorez-but also 14 members of Premier Georges Pompidou's defeated cabinet...
...While we welcome a strong executive, its actions must be kept under the control of the people's elected representatives, as in all other countries of the free world...
...Malraux seemed to ignore the elementary rules of addressing a TV audience...
...Anything else can only lead to arbitrary rule...
...Moreover, there exists in the South of France an old Socialist and Radical-Socialist tradition that dates back to the turn of the century...
...Judging by the results of the referendum, such opinions are now particularly prevalent in Pariswhere the number of "No" votes rose from 14 per cent in April 1962 to 42 per cent in October-and in the provinces south of the Loire River...
...No fewer than 2,367 candidates are now vying for the 465 seats in the National Assembly, which will be elected November 18 and 25...
...On the other hand, France is not yet in 1984...
...The Association is headed by Andr?© Malraux, the most gifted theoretician of Gaullism...
...The cameras closed in on him without mercy, and while he read his speech in a trembling voice, the viewers were given a chance to count every hair on his scalp for 15 minutes...
...That is why parliament was impotent to solve the problems of Algeria and decolonization...
...Of course, not all of these admirers are necessarily going to vote UNR at the coming elections...
...Jean Jaur??s, as well as former Presidents Cl?©ment Falli??res, Gaston Dumergue and Vincent Auriol, came from that region...
...By insuring that all future guides will be elected by the sovereign people, he has insured the continuity of stable government in France...
...In contrast, all the departments bordering on Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg overwhelmingly backed General de Gaulle on October 28...
...We were ashamed to watch this distorted image of a man whom we have admired and who remains admirable in many respects.' Insiders affirm that the camera crews committed an act of subtle sabotage...
...The orator was shown from a caricatured angle...
...Instead of sitting down and facing his listeners, he placed himself behind a low table and bent over his script like a general over a map...
...THE COMING FRENCH ELECTIONS Showdown for the Gaullists By George W Herald Paris Whatever people may say about the decline of parliamentarism under General Charles de Gaulle, it seems unlikely to die from lack of competition...
...Frenchmen, who know their history, point out that as early as in the Middle Ages the Southerners professed a deep respect for the written law, and preferred it to the pragmatic common law practiced north of the Loire...
...George W. Herald is a veteran foreign correspondent based in Paris...
...Its percentage of votes is expected to fall considerably short of 62 per cent...
...Apart from the UNR men and a score of "Leftist" Gaullists grouped in the Union Democratique du Travail, this includes some 70 Catholics of the Popular Republican Movement (MRP) and as many moderate Independents who have refused to hue to their party line...
...The spectacle was painful for his friends and opponents alike," commented the weekly L'Express...
...Some of them are poor and have very little industry, but that alone cannot explain their disaffection: The main bastion of the naysayers, after all, is the booming port of Marseilles...
...As a link between government and people, it is rapidly replacing parliament...
...But even here the going will be tough...
...A second ballot, in which the simple majority wins, will have to be staged in nearly all districts...
...Vote logical...
...Its great advantage is that the people -unlike parliament-cannot talk back to the speakers who enter their private homes on the TV screen...
...Certain members of the President's entourage, including Georges Pompidou, are reported to be already working toward such a compromise solution...
...In 1958, this system enabled the Gaullists to win 200 seats, simply because their antagonists remained split...
...Indirect proof of the medium's effectiveness was offered during the recent referendum, when several French departments where TV cannot yet be received voted "No" by a large majority...
...At an inaugural meeting in the Chaillot Palace on October 30 he expounded the following theses: "The nation is the mainspring of all action...
...Decision-making in a modern nation cannot be left to parliament...
...But if the UNR suffers a bad defeat, and no workable majority can be found, many here are afraid that General de Gaulle will once again retire to Colombey-les-deux-Eglises...
...There are still millions of Frenchmen who share the TV personnel's misgivings about new propaganda techniques...
...The Gaullists are directing their campaign primarily at the 62 per cent of the electorate who backed their idol in the October 28 referendum...
...Most of them are MRP Catholics from way back and do not plan to switch their party allegiance...
...If this occurs, General de Gaulle may be ready to sponsor a coalition government, in which key posts will be occupied by such Catholic leaders as Pierre Pflimlin and Maurice Schumann...
...The farther south one travels, in fact, the weaker de Gaulle's grip on the people seems to be...
Vol. 45 • November 1962 • No. 23
