Juggler

Though his opponents are busy discussing among themselves who will be France's next Premier,* Pierre Mendes-France last week blithely shook up his Cabinet for the fifth time and announced crisply: "Now the real work begins." By this he meant applying himself to his favorite subject, economics, and his declared intention to unravel France's knotted economy.

In all that has gone before (Geneva, EDC, the Paris accords), Mendes-France, for all his spectacular performance, has regarded himself as merely clearing the decks. Last week the Premier stepped down as his own Foreign Minister and persuaded his able Minister of Finance, Edgar Faure, to move over to the Quai d'Orsay. Faure, who was Premier once himself (for 40 days in 1952) and would like to be again, is a lawyer and econo mist, a moderately successful writer of mystery stories (under the pseudonym Edgar Sanday), and a backer of the late EDC. His elevation to Foreign Minister is plainly part of Mendes' effort to stave off his threatening tumble from power by a gesture to the country's "European" wing. But agile as Mendes-France is, his enemies are still confident that they will shortly bring him down.

To add to the splintered confusion in the French Assembly, the executive com mittee of the Socialist Party voted last week to expel 16 Deputies who defied party orders by voting against both EDC and the Paris accords. The Socialists, with 105 seats in the Assembly, are the largest single party in the Assembly. If the 16 rebels refuse to confess their sins and return contritely to the fold, the largest single party in the Assembly will then be the Communists (98 Deputies).

* Most talked about: Rightist Antoine Pinay, who was Premier almost ten months in 1952.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.