At the Stake

Ever since the British burned Joan of Arc. martyrdom by foreigners has been pure glory for a Frenchman. Hard-pressed by critics of his Algerian policy and urgently in need of tax funds to plug his cracking war economy. France's Premier Guy Mollet last week chose to risk glorious extinction, at the stake of the U.N. Security Council rather than be buried in the ignominy of domestic issues.

Late one afternoon last week, at the end of a long ministerial meeting in the mirrored Salon des Ambassadeurs at the Elysee Palace, grave, bespectacled Mollet rose from his place beside French President Rene Coty and walked briskly out through the glass doors to face a crowd of newsmen in the cobblestoned courtyard. Calmly, he read from a typewritten sheet: "Before the Ministers' meeting I offered to Monsieur Coty, President of the Republic, my resignation and that of my government." Reason: he could not go along with the U.S. and British decision to accept Nasser's conditions for using the Suez Canal. Said Mollet bitterly: "If the U.N. must systematically give in to the desires of dictators . . . then it is not an organization worthy of its international character."

Ready to Stay. Before newsmen could dash to their telephones with the news that the 15-month-old government (a Fourth Republic record) was ended, Mollet explained that, at President Coty's request, he had agreed to stay in office. "Resigning today might seem, to some people, like an attempt to run away," he said. Far from running away, Mollet was sending Foreign Minister Christian Pineau to demand a showdown against Egypt in the U.N.' Security Council.

Mollet's maneuver was timed to coincide with the National Assembly debate on the government's demand for 150 billion francs ($428 million) in new taxes. Last week, as the Assembly Finance Committee tore up Finance Minister Paul Ra-madier's tax plan (indirect levies which would fall heavily on upper-income brackets), there was a significant rise in the price of the gold Napoleon, a coin that Frenchmen traditionally buy when they become nervous about their country's currency. Suggestions that the franc be devalued* were described by Mollet as "crime and imbecility.'' Although his government faces a deficit of about $2 billion to $3 billion, the hard core of France's gold reserves ($860 million in bullion) remains untouched so far. Mollet announced that he would demand a vote of confidence (his 33rd) on his fiscal plan.

What made this test critical was the feeling among France's power-sensitive politicians that his government was use (used up). But by reviving the dying

Suez issue. Mollet had given a patriotic dimension to what was essentially an economic debate. Normally a calm, rational schoolteacher, Guy Mollet hates Nasser with a smoldering passion, and the French respect him for it. One measure of Mollet's standing in the country: Montmartre's irreverent chansonniers, traditionally free with politicians in their songs, do not mock Mollet.

In bringing up Suez, Mollet calculated that if the Security Council vetoed France's plea he would be a martyr; in the unlikely event that France carried her case in the U.N., he would be a hero. Either way a vote against him in the National Assembly at that moment would seem like a vote for Nasser. While the pro-Mendes-France L'Express could jeer, "playing Joan of Arc," and illustrate its point with a photomontage (see cut), Guy Mollet had taken the onJy course which might save a government already use. Said Mollet: "The atmosphere doesn't smell of crisis, but on paper I've lost."

*The official rate is 350 francs to the dollar. Free market rate last week: 410.

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