A Little Coquetry

After most of the other strikers had gone back to work, the biggest union of them all, the Communist-led C.G.T., suddenly called off its effort to prolong the strike that had paralyzed France for three weeks. Two hours later, the gate of gloomy Fresnes Prison outside Paris opened, and out walked five top French Communists (including Andre Stil, managing editor of L'Humanite). They had been held for months awaiting trial on charges of conspiring against France's military security; now, without new evidence or new arguments, they were set free.

"Yes," admitted a spokesman at Hotel Matignon, France's 10 Downing Street, "perhaps it does look a little strange, but really it was just a coincidence." Coincidence or not, the prisoners had their bags all packed before the word came, and the party threw a champagne banquet for them that night.

Lost Ground. On the whole, the Communists had been quite well-behaved during the strike. As a Foreign Office man put it, "There is a little coquetry going on. We have reason to believe that the Russians want to make friends with us." The strike was getting unpopular among the strikers themselves; presumably the Reds did not want to put too much strain on the de facto "unity of action" they had to some extent achieved among the workers, although leaders of the non-Communist unions continued to resist the blandishments of a Popular Front appeal.

The Communists might, in fact, count the strike a success--if no one else could. The Laniel government, which for three weeks alternated between weakness and firmness, lost ground. The peace agreement that it signed with anti-Communist unions (it refused to deal with the C.G.T.) abandoned some of the very economy decrees over which the strike had started. The government now promised to pay communications workers a year-end bonus, to leave transport workers' retirement schemes essentially untouched and to convene the collective bargaining board to consider raising minimum wages.

Lingering Malaise. But though the government in fact had yielded much, it did so in such niggardly and haggling fashion and with such a desire to minimize its concessions that the non-Communist unions (the Catholic C.F.T.C. and the Socialist Force Ouvriere) could not show a spectacular victory. The workers went back to their jobs dissatisfied, in many cases receptive to the Communist accusation that they had been "betrayed." The strike was over, but the malaise lingered on.

This week, trying to regain ground and to stall off further trouble, the Laniel government reached an agreement with Paris butchers for a 10% price reduction on steaks and cheaper cuts of meat. By means of similar deals with cartel trade associations, the government hopes to get 5% to 10% price reductions on other food, household goods, linen and clothes.

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