Home to Paris

Two planes, bound on fateful missions, went opposite ways in Europe's troubled air last week. One plane was carrying General Charles de Gaulle to Moscow. The other carried his most formidable rival, Maurice Thorez, Secretary of the French Communist Party, from exile in Moscow to Paris. Three weeks ago De Gaulle had cleared the way by pardoning Thorez for military desertion.

At the Velodrome d'Hiver, Paris' dusty version of Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, 50,000 Frenchmen welcomed him. While pretty girls collected funds, tossed bouquets of red carnations at the guest of honor, the big meeting sang La Marseillaise (six times), the Internationale (four times). The comrades listened to political speeches by Acting Party Secretary Jacques Duclos, who sweated profusely, and ex-Party Secretary Marcel Cachin, who declaimed: "Thorez, like Lenin, is always ahead of the people." Then Thorez walked into the spotlight. He began softly, ended thunderously. His speech was organized around four catch phrases which constituted a program for French Communists in the next few months:

P: Faire la guerre!--"Wage war! Wage war . . . until final victory, until we reach Berlin! That is our sole job at the present time."

P: Nous pouvons, nous devons--"We [the French people] can, we must make our own guns, tanks and planes. . . . We can, we must have 20, 30, 40 or more [Army] divisions. . . ."

P: Les hommes de Munich--The men of Munich must be purged. "There must be no more Munichs in the form of blocs, or any other form."

P: Chers camarades ... reveillez, reveillez, reveillez--"Dear comrades . . . awake, awake, awake!"

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