The Last Weapon

As French Premiers go--and they do go rather frequently--Socialist Paul Ramadier had lasted a long time; in fact, nearly a year. He was good at compromising and temporizing, at the small makeshift remedies which postpone disaster, and he was undeniably a man of good will. In the crunch between Gaullists and Communists, it was not enough. Last week Paul Ramadier resigned.

Old Man's Dream. Communist strikes and violence were numbing the country. More openly than ever, the Reds admitted that their main objective was to block aid from the U.S. In this crisis, who could form a government? President Vincent Auriol asked 75-year-old Socialist Leon Blum to try. But M. Blum, it seemed, was living in an old man's dream--the dream of a troisieme force (third force) which would hold the democratic bastions against Gaullism and Communism alike. In his request to the Assembly for a vote of confidence, Leon Blum antagonized the growing nucleus of De Gaulle adherents. He missed his majority by nine votes.

M. Auriol then turned to a highly regarded man of the M.R.P. (Popular Republicans), 61-year-old Finance Minister Robert Schuman. M. Schuman roundly denounced the Communists and no one else. Consequently no one voted against him but the "Cocos" and a few mavericks. Py a vote of 412 to 184, Robert Schuman became France's new Premier.

After some strenuous haggling, M. Schuman announced a cabinet composed of Socialists, Popular Republicans and Radicals (centrists), plus one moderate Independent Republican. Foreign Minister Georges Bidault was kept at his post; the important Ministries of Interior (police) and of Social Affairs (labor) went to Socialists Jules Modi and Daniel Mayer.

Sprig of a wealthy Lorraine family, Robert Schuman has been a parliament member since 1919, got his first ministry in 1940. A hard-working widower of frugal tastes, he lives in one room, takes all his meals at the Assembly restaurant, where the prix fixe is 120 francs ($1). The Nazis arrested him in 1940, but he escaped after seven months in a German fortress.

The Stranglehold. Communist Benoit Frachon, secretary-general of the C.G.T. (national labor federation), was up every night until 3 a.m., directing his army of 5,000,000 workers. Less than a third of this great mass is actually Communist, but the Cocos hold three-fifths of the top executive jobs in all major unions. At the strike-bound port of Marseille, where Red violence exploded last fortnight, U.S. seamen refused to unload U.S. ships. To them Benoit Frachon, who conceals unlimited brutality beneath a mask of affability, telegraphed appreciation of their sympathy with "French workers in their courageous fight against the imperialism of the Marshall Plan."

What this means, most of the French union workers know. Last week, where secret strike votes were held, the rank & file voted against striking. In the northern coal fields, where 200,000 miners were out at the time of France's acutest need for coal, some thousands of men shouldered their way past Communist pickets and resumed their work.

Yet the Communist stranglehold was such that 1,000,000 or more workers in all were idle this week, and the number was not dwindling but increasing. With France's bread ration smaller than it was during the Nazi occupation, a national strike hit the flour mills. Another was scheduled this week in all seaports. The Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee railway, main artery from Paris to the south, ground to a stop, and service on several other systems was crippled.

Brave Words. Said Premier Schuman: "Force is the last weapon in anyone's armory. But, above all, it is a weapon which must remain in the armory of the law. As long as I head a French government, force will be on the side of the law."

These were brave words but, in Washington, M. Schuman's premiership was regarded as a gouvernement d'attente--an interim government which might, at best, hold on until Charles de Gaulle comes to power. In his country house at Colombey-les-Deux Eglises, Charles de Gaulle, watching and waiting, quietly passed his 57th birthday. He shared a bottle of champagne with his family.

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