Reform or Perish

On the subject of the disintegration of government, there is probably no better-informed man alive than Paul Reynaud. Premier of France in the last three months of the Third Republic. Reynaud saw (in the words of General de Gaulle) "the regime collapsing around him, the people fleeing, allies retreating, the most illustrious commanders defecting . . . The very exercise of power was no more than a sort of agony, strung out along roads, in the dislocation of services, discipline and conscience." Last week 76-year-old Paul Reynaud was in the van of a movement to stop threatening disintegration in France's Fourth Republic.

In 1940, with the Nazi legions rolling into a divided, defeatist country, Reynaud cried: "If a miracle is needed to save France, I believe in miracles because I believe in France." He called for "clouds of airplanes from across the Atlantic," but because he was driven back to Bordeaux, boxed in by collaborationist politicians and forced to yield the government to Marshal Petain, his overly optimistic rallying cries in 1940 are cynically remembered today.

For his efforts to save his country, he was tried by the Vichy government, handed over to the Germans and spent four rigorous years in French and German prisons. His wartime imprisonment and his excellent record as a member of the French Assembly since 1946 have brought about a reappraisal of his fatal premiership. Says De Gaulle in his recent memoirs: "In such conditions, the intelligence of Paul Reynaud, his courage, the authority of his office, were deployed, so to speak, in a vacuum."

Twenty Crises. Last week Reynaud's intelligence and courage and authority were in action at the office he occupies as chairman of the powerful Assembly Finance Committee. Sitting stiffly upright at his desk, with scarcely a crease in his double-breasted waistcoat, he wrote out in longhand a set of proposals for reforming the French constitution to enable ministers to stay in office long enough to conduct responsible government. Although he himself had voted against the Mendes-France government, and thus helped bring on its collapse, he told a press conference that this 20th ministerial crisis in ten years was a blow to France's vital interests.

Said he: "The figure that France cuts in the world, because of ministerial instability, wounds and irritates Frenchmen. The Assembly can overthrow as many governments as it pleases without any other motive than the opportunity of its members to satisfy ambitions overstimulated by the very frequency of the crises." Added Reynaud with a bitter irony: "It's becoming a disgrace not to have been a minister just like everyone else."

Reynaud's plan for reducing the recurrent crises: 1) make the constitution easier to amend, 2) then pass an amendment which makes dissolution of Parliament and new elections automatic when a government is defeated on a censure motion, or a vote of confidence, within two years after taking office.

Surprising Support. By quick telephone calls and discreet meetings. Reynaud won surprising support for his plan. Even many Socialists and members of the Catholic M.R.P.. both doctrinarily opposed to strong Premiers, rallied to his idea. Only the Communists were unanimously opposed. At week's end he had signed up eight parliamentary groups for a total of 328 votes in the Assembly. As soon as the current budget debate is ended, he will ask for "urgent discussion" of his proposals, hopes to effect the procedural change by July, and to have the constitutional, amendment enacted before the 1956 general elections.

Newspapers which had never had a good word to say about the men of the Third Republic last week were praising Reynaud for his well-timed effort to prevent government from reaching the ultimate mockery of "deploying its authority in a vacuum." Boomed conservative Le Figaro: "Reform or Perish is not a slogan, it is a fact."

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