Conspiracy? Degeneration?

To cable from France last week that you thought the franc about to go off gold was to risk being deported under Premier Pierre Laval's new and drastic decrees for defense of the franc. Into Paris mailboxes vexed correspondents popped dire franc predictions. These, unopened, safely reached London, Brussels, Amsterdam. Everyone knew anyhow that gold was again in flight from France in the nearest thing to panic since last spring. Three successive uppings by the Bank of France of its discount rate failed to halt the flow. Instead it quickened. The radical parties opposing M. Laval redoubled what they call their politique du pire--tactics "to make everything worse & worse." As the Chamber of Deputies met after a five-month recess last week both the Socialist Populaire and the Radical Socialist L'Oeuvre predicted an immediate, bloody "March on Paris" by French Fascists. "The plan of attack includes assaults upon the Chamber of Deputies and various Ministries," flatly declared L'Oeuvre. "In the early hours of the uprising a certain number of summary executions are foreseen. On the black list are most radical former Ministers. The manner of execution will be to throw victims from the Pont de la Concorde into the Seine." On the fateful day a cold Paris drizzle was enough to send all dissident elements into their favorite cafes, blowing on their fingers and puffing with indignation. At the last minute the so-called "Popular Front" of Radical Socialists, Socialists and Communists opposing the Premier split, Boss Edouard Herriot of the Radical Socialists holding back the bulk of his Radical Socialists, temporarily at least, from the onslaught demanded by Boss Leon Blum of the Socialists. What with the rain and the split, Premier Pierre Laval, astute and earthy, was able to face the Chamber of Deputies with a small piece of paper on which he lazily drew lines back & forth with a stubby pencil. Except for the continuing flight of gold, the anticlimax could not have been more complete. "Save the Franc." Whipping himself up, Socialist Boss Leon Blum burst into an oration designed to show up Premier Laval as at heart a blackshirt despite his lifelong affectation of pure white ties & shirts. Thundered scrawny, droop-mustached Boss Blum at the Radical Socialists: "Are you going to fall into the trap which is being laid for you? Are you going to quail before the double pressure of street riots and bank panics? "What has the Government done to assure the defense of our liberties?" roared M. Blum. "There is an open and public conspiracy against our republican institutions! What has the Government done to safeguard them against seditious leagues?" During all this the Premier continued to draw lines back & forth on his bit of paper, but Socialist Blum did get one rise out of Independent Laval. "I am sure," sneered M. Blum, "that if you had been able to do so you would have promulgated your budget by decree instead of convoking the Chamber!" M. Laval, his eyes narrowing a trifle, shot back: "That is precisely what I would have done." As Radical Deputies set up a howl Socialist Blum crowed: "I underline the gravity of this confession!" Pierre Laval only shrugged. Few minutes later the Premier asked a vote of confidence on the issue that his Government demanded immediate debate on its "Save the Franc" decrees, whereas the Radicals wanted to debate Fascism first. In the count last week Pierre Laval won 345-to-225, but this initial triumph was no more than a good start on a Chamber session fairly reeking with politique du pire. "Simple Soldier." In the dictionary sense of Fascism--a movement which is nationalist as opposed to internationalist, conservative as opposed to radical--the French War veterans league of the Croix de Feu under Colonel Franc,ois de la Rocque is unquestionably Fascist. Last week the colonel felt the need of explaining his program. This he finds almost impossible to do because, in the best sense of the words, de la Rocque is a "simple soldier." The more lucid part of his long and confused but soldierly explanation of Croix-de-Feuism last week: "We shall never make a religion of the State. But we want a State which guides, supervises and punishes. We are revolted by the present degeneration of parliamentarism, but we have never said we wanted to end it. We only want parliamentarism restored to a proper notion of the separation of executive and judiciary powers, removed from temptation, by means of adequate rules of procedure, and rid, once and for all of the gangrene of 'influential recommendations,' by which Deputies and Senators abuse their authority and become the worst corruptors of the public service. . . . "A wave of anti-Semitism would be as disastrous to our country as religious wars were formerly. I have Jewish heads of sections both in the Croix de Feu and the Associated National Volunteers. "The Croix de Feu movement is above religious divergences, as it is above class barriers and differences of origin. The Croix de Feu movement seeks only to unite, in tested, constant love of the nation, all those who consecrate themselves to it. "Since we want, not to transform our country but to reunite it and rebuild the national economy, we cannot start by introducing revolution, either in form or in fact. The pitfall we must avoid is throwing ourselves into a series of local violent actions which would give us the reputation with the average Frenchman of being turbulent, ambitious persons, and which would drive him into the arms of Marxism, falsely represented as the last defender of the republic." Against Gravity? Since there is a rooted popular conviction in France that to inflate, devaluate or shrink the value of money in any way is just about the dirtiest trick a state can play upon its citizens, Premier Pierre Laval was able to obtain a second vote of confidence last week 324-to-247 by reaffirming his policy of keeping the value of the franc exactly where it is on the gold standard.

This victory the Premier won, but debate prior to the actual vote was less unfavorable to devaluation than any previously heard in the French Chamber. Applause by a roughly-estimated 70% of the Deputies present greeted statements that the gold bloc is dead, that to oppose devaluation is like pulling against the force of gravity and that deflation has not had the hoped-for result of bringing down the cost of living in France.

When the issue was joined, however, Premier Laval shamed the dirty-trickers and won by challenging the Deputies thus: "There seem to be many devaluationists in this Chamber. I call upon them to show themselves by voting against my Government!"

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