The Remaking of Gaullism
ALAN, RAY
AFTER THE REBELLION The Remaking of Gaullism By Ray Alan Paris In retreat only a few short weeks ago—and so dispirited that he flew to Germany in quest of the support of Army officers he...
...Pompidou and his lieutenants spared no financial or propagandist effort to exploit these traits...
...Outside the big cities, the French tend to vote for personalities rather than policies, preferably (in contrast to the British who enjoy pendulum politics) for members or influential supporters of the outgoing administration who can extract funds from the central bureaucracy for local projects...
...But even if this does happen, the Left-wing is too weak in the National Assembly to force de Gaulle to hold fresh elections...
...Peasants, artisans and small shopkeepers are many times more numerous in France than in Britain...
...Except in the cities, political organizations are shadowy or non-existent, and labor unions are weak, divided and inclined, therefore, to prefer eyecatching demonstrations and short, sharp strikes to long drawn out negotiation...
...Arthur Koestler's Scum of the Earth is still essential reading for any student of French affairs...
...He will do his master's bidding and, unlike Pompidou, hide whatever resentment he may feel when de Gaulle conceals from him details of high policy too lofty for a mere Prime Minister...
...At the right time and in the right places they were reinforced by moral arguments...
...During the last 20 years, submerged in clan politics and the delights of the pork barrel, the moderate parties have neglected the basic political education without which no democratic society can conduct its affairs intelligently...
...And they are going to find it harder than ever to get their message over on television, now the major opinion-forming medium in France: Despite pre-election promises of greater freedom in broadcasting, the government is tightening its grip on television and purging the network of newsmen, producers and performers whose loyalty wavered last May...
...Within a day or two the irritation was soothed by de Gaulle's carefully ambiguous letter to Pompidou and officially inspired rumors that the General's intention was to give his ex-Premier a rest from routine politics so as to enable him to groom himself for the Presidential succession...
...The architect of the victory, and hero of the bourgeoisie, was Pompidou...
...Hampered from the start by inflation, a flight of capital, and high working-class expectations—and far more disunited than British Labor?their administration would probably have collapsed within a year, opening the road to a government far more reactionary than the present one...
...They now seem doomed to suffer the consequences...
...Pompidou wins the election for de Gaulle so de Gaulle fires him . . ." All these apparent paradoxes arise from the fundamental conservatism of the majority of Frenchmen...
...Pompidou's demotion irritated many Gaullist members of the National Assembly...
...But the disorders had scared rural and smalltown conservatives as badly as the moneyed bourgeoisie, and conspiratorial explanations of politics always have a ready audience in France...
...Succession by Georges Pompidou would be an unglamorous second best, but the General is a realist: He wants his political masterwork to survive his death and knows it is more likely to do so under a practiced politician like Pompidiu than under the Comte de Paris...
...One week we're on strike, manning barricades and chanting revolutionary slogans, and the next we're voting massively for Right-wing conservatives...
...Pompidou astutely linked the riots, barricades and red and black flags of May with the Communist party...
...This was in the tradition of the Third Republic and Marshal Petain's regime...
...If the government's measures do —as seems probable—arouse discontent, it is likely to bypass the political parties again and seek expression in strike action...
...Despite the growth of industry and the rural exodus of the last 15 years, the French still live primarily in small communities...
...The political police are being given the men and resources they need to keep a closer watch on revolutionary groups in the universities and elsewhere, and de Gaulle now has a clear electoral mandate for the repression of violence, plus the assurance of military support...
...Some were annoyed because it seemed to make a mockery of the democratic pretension of Gaullism, others realized they had also taken too much for granted and hitched themselves prematurely to Pompidou's star...
...But, provided de Gaulle keeps his health, there is little likelihood of substantial political change...
...Only de Gaulle knows what substance these rumors contain, and he may well keep the secret for some time...
...I don't know what foreigners make of French affairs," a Left-wing Socialist told me the other day, "but they baffle me...
...And the students could again detonate an explosion...
...The leaders of the May disruptions were, in fact, bitter opponents of the orthodox cp, which had repeatedly denounced them...
...In theory, he can now do what he likes, and in July he made a start by naming the faithful and frigid Maurice Couve de Murville Prime Minister in place of the faithful and ebullient Georges Pompidou...
...As his power base is now the Parliamentary leadership of the Gaullist party, he has no alternative if he wishes to stay near the center of things...
...the workers' pay claims—and was denounced by the Gaullists and abandoned by half a million workers...
...But the Gaullists' most telling weapon was the Red Peril...
...The nomination of Couve de Mur-ville as Prime Minister underlines de Gaulle's determination to continue ruling as well as reigning, Pompidou is frankly ambitious and was becoming too powerful in his own right to make the kind of collaborator de Gaulle likes...
...Should disorders break out on the campuses in the coming year, however, the authorities are likely to hit back sooner and harder than they did last spring...
...Like Franco, de Gaulle was once attracted by the idea of a royal restoration, and his monarchist friends had a hand in drafting the Constitution of the Fifth Republic...
...Pompidou, for his part, has declared his loyalty to the Couve administration and is demonstratively willing to play a loyal Humphrey to de Gaulle's LBJ if de Gaulle gives him a chance...
...Some previously anti-Gaullist personalities, including former Socialists, Radicals and advocates of "French Algeria," were persuaded to make their peace with the regime and either stand as Gaullists or endorse Gaullist candidates...
...The universities will consequently have a record intake of students in October (when the next academic year starts), with higher expectations than ever and no lack of apprentice revolutionaries eager for the fame Daniel Cohn-Bendit achieved...
...Gerrymandered constituency boundaries that tie Left-wing urban areas to conservative rural hinterlands were maintained despite opposition protests...
...Most people are mistrustful of Parliamentary democracy—with which France has had less experience than Canada or Australia—and apolitical between elections...
...Examiners, playing for safety, have been generous in France's high schools this summer: Only oral exams have been held and the bac-calaureat—the overrated, indeed culturally insignificant, diploma which nevertheless allows those who possess it to enter French universities?has been handed out like trading stamps...
...and while Pompidou sees Gaullism as essentially an anti-Marxist coalition of conservatives and Right-wingers, de Gaulle has hopes of reconciling capital and labor and seducing the Left...
...And his friends say that, having got over the disappointment of demotion, he is almost grateful for it, since he is unlikely now to be associated in the minds of the electorate with the unpopular economic measures that will have to be taken during the next few months...
...Some Leftists are now assuring one another that Couve's austerity measures willl swing opinion in their favor...
...From this welter of propaganda Gaullism emerged as a crusade not only to save France from Communist and foreign intrigue but to rescue French youth from moral corruption...
...But Pompidou took too much for granted and overlooked the fact that the surest way to arouse de Gaulle's resentment is to render him a really important service: The General is one of those people who believe that gratitude diminishes a man...
...By spinning out the suspense, Franco has kept himself in power and his potential successors on tenterhooks: The day he announced a decision he would cease to be indispensable...
...Pompidou smiled indulgently, told Capitant not to bother, and ordered a member of his personal staff who opposed the idea to write a feasibility study of it...
...For good measure, the authorities rounded up a number of foreign students and refugees, accused them vaguely of abusing France's hospitality, and expelled 200-300...
...The Communist party opposed the anti-Gaullist extremists and supported Ray Alan, a frequent contributor, is a British correspondent who reports from both France and Spain...
...With 100 more Gaullists in the National Assembly, and 100 fewer Socialists and Communists, the General has been given both an overwhelming vote of confidence and an unconditional Parliamentary majority...
...The shifty opportunism of the Communist party and the ramshackle nature of the Communist-Socialist-Radical alliance—the only visible alternative to Gaullism—helped the regime...
...On May 28, when de Gaulle seemed to many people to be dithering, Pompidou had already angered him by offering to assume what would, in effect, have been Presidential powers for the duration of the crisis...
...Couve is a first-rate adminstrator but affects to consider himself no more than a grand commis, a senior employe...
...In the longer term, there is a danger of greater political polarization, a trend toward extremism of Left and Right, and a further weakening of the traditional democratic parties...
...The short-term outlook is one of economic discomfort: inflation and industrial unrest culminating, perhaps, in devaluation, and followed by a fairly rapid recovery...
...France's bien pensants and provincial prudes (far more prudish than the average foreign visitor to Paris might suspect: the inoffensive English miniskirt had a hard 18-month fight to establish itself in the French provinces) were shocked by accounts of orgies and mounting dope addiction in student-controlled universities, reproductions of posters (emetic rather than pornographic) produced by obviously sick-minded art students, and photos of inscriptions on faculty walls suggesting (or advertising) sexual adventures ranging from "anal masturbation," whatever that may be, to "perversions of all kinds" ("every evening in Room...
...Later, when de Gaulle tried to woo the workers by declaring himself in favor of "participation"—by which he is thought to mean giving workers a share in the control and profits of industry—he appointed Rene Capitant, a Left-wing Gaullist who dislikes Pompidou, as Minister of Justice with responsibility for drafting some such scheme...
...Conservatism and xenophobia are a powerful combination...
...Capitant rushed off to protest to de Gaulle and emerged from the Elysee palace with a triumphant air...
...Had they won the election they would have taken over the government under conditions similar to those of the Labor party in Britain...
...The leaders of the defeated Left-wing opposition can console themselves with a similar thought...
...AFTER THE REBELLION The Remaking of Gaullism By Ray Alan Paris In retreat only a few short weeks ago—and so dispirited that he flew to Germany in quest of the support of Army officers he exultantly humiliated during his first two years in power—General de Gaulle has won the sort of victory few politicians (or generals) ever dare dream of...
...There is no danger of his playing to the gallery in order to build up a personal following...
...The nominal victor of the campaign was de Gaulle...
...A surprising number of Frenchmen see no connection between political and industrial affairs, and the same man will happily pay dues to a Communist-led union and vote for a prominent Gaullist...
...He has been impressed by his neighbor General Franco's skill in delaying a decision on the Spanish succession...
Vol. 51 • August 1968 • No. 15
