14th Try

France has had 106 governments in 70 years. Last week in a small, barren committee room of the Chamber of Deputies, political leaders were molding its 14th Constitution since 1791. Their problem was to secure a less volatile government and at the same time preserve dearly won individual liberties.

No French version of democracy could fail to draw on the libertarian principles of Rousseau and Montesquieu. Men known as leftists had fought for years for those principles; yet today's leftists sought to limit and modify them.

Freedom of the press was the clearest example. Liberal-Catholic MRP committeemen wanted a "guarantee" that it would not be tampered with, considered a slight case of press control as dangerous as a slight case of cancer. Communists and Socialists feared a return to France's prewar corrupt press standards, which reached the reeking point in the '30s when Le Matin and other papers sold out to the Germans. The Communist Humanite tiraded against allowing the press to be controlled by the wealthy, warned that "trusts" must not "dominate public opinion contrary to real freedom." In the drafting committee, the Communist-Socialist limitations on press freedom were approved, 20 to 16.

Women's Work. On another significant issue the MRP carried its point. An article inspired by women's organizations provides for the right of employment "without distinction other than . . . capacity, aptitudes or talents." Communists and Socialists abstained from voting, because French labor unions regard women workers as an antiunion element.

A long-familiar French voice last week backed up MRP's stand against the new leftist definition of liberty. Aging Edouard Herriot struck out: "Freedom of the press and freedom of discussion have foundered. . . . We must . . . reconquer our liberties and return to the normal rules of democracy."

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