Ready for Battle

The great markets of La Villette, on the northeastern outskirts of Paris, reeked as usual with the gore of freshly slaughtered livestock. Nearly a thousand butchers, ruddy-faced and cheerful, lounged about waiting for the clang of the heavy iron bell to call them into the slaughterhouses, to bid for the fresh carcasses of 800 oxen and cows, 1,000 calves, and 1,500 sheep.

"Now What?" Then two shabby black cars drew up. On the windshields were stickers with the word "ravitaillement" (provisioning). A dozen men, in frayed but neat suits, bowlers or felt hats and white collars, got out. They looked like what they were--civil servants.

Waving requisition slips, the agents moved into the slaughterhouses. Angry butchers spat out the question: "Qu'est-ce que c'est, cette fois?" ("Now what?"). In a few minutes the entire day's stock of meat at La Villette had been bought by the government and resold to the butchers at officially fixed prices. All day agents of the Controle Economique moved about Paris, to see that the newly pegged meat prices were respected.

The clampdown on meat prices was another move in Premier Robert Schuman's efforts to combat French inflation and revive French industry. First, he had tried a partial return to a free economy, with franc devaluation, open trading in gold and dollars, lifting of many price controls. But when, on Socialist insistence, Schuman had called in 5,000-franc notes, many Frenchmen (especially farmers) had lost confidence in their currency. Prices continued to shoot upward. In a month the cost of onions and potatoes went up 50%, mutton 20%, carrots 100%.

"What's the Use?" Now Schuman was trying to stop price increases by a partial return to dirigisme (state control). One housewife last week voiced a typical complaint: "I'd rather pay five francs more a pound for my meat than pay taxes for the wages of these government snoopers. They won't stop prices rising, anyway--they will simply drive the meat off the market."

What many a housewife only vaguely understood was that unless Schuman, by some method, checked soaring prices, his government, and perhaps the Fourth Republic, would fall. Already the Communist-controlled Federation of Labor (which claimed that the cost of living had risen 21.5% since Schuman granted general wage increases last Dec. 1) was demanding a new 20% general wage increase. The demand--which, if granted, would simply push prices still higher--gave Communists a popular rallying cry in a new onslaught against Schuman's government. Schuman last week grimly accepted the challenge: "I am ready for my greatest battle."

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