Omelets

Last week, in an office in the gloomy Chamber of Deputies, aged (74), ailing Premier Leon Blum ruminated wearily over a light dinner of mushroom omelet, plain lettuce salad and toast, then confided in a tired whisper: "An omelet is easier to make than a Cabinet . . . things are more complicated than I thought. . . ."

Since a desperate National Assembly had voted him the Premiership a fortnight ago (after M.R.P. and Communist candidates had been defeated), France's grand old man of Socialism had been absorbed in futile attempts to form a Cabinet. The Radicals and their affiliates refused to join a Government which did not include the Rightists; the Communists refused to enter a Government which did. Formula after formula had been shattered by their rock-like intransigence.

At week's end, after another series of futile meetings, exasperated elder statesman Blum said: "I have gone as fast as I could . . . I was over optimistic." Then he suddenly took matters into his own hands, proposed a Cabinet composed entirely of his fellow Socialists. Under his own arm he tucked the portfolio of Foreign Affairs in addition to the job of President-Premier.

Said Blum: "What was I to do? What was my duty?

"I realize that it looks odd for a party that has less than 100 members in an Assembly that has more than 600 members to present a Government. But we had to put an end to a crisis . . . that threatened to become perilous."

The other parties, well aware that unpopular economic measures were surgically necessary to save France, might be glad to see courageous old Blum take the responsibility on his own.

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