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PARTISAN REVIEW
controlled CGT managed in the end to regain the ground it lost in
the beginning; it may have done so, though it should be noted that its
numerical strength is now somewhat inferior to the combined weight
of the other unions: the Catholic CFTC (750,000 members), the So–
cialist Force Ouvriere (about 500,0(0), and the independent
Confeder–
ation Generale des Cadres
which organizes foremen, technicians, and
"managerial" elements in industry. It is, however, pretty clear that all
the unions have drawn closer together, and to this extent the chances
of another "Popular Front" have improved. Whether the once-bitten
Socialist and Catholic labor leaders and their parliamentary allies will,
at some date in the future, risk such a desperate experiment remains to
be seen.
If
the upheaval is viewed from the anglt> of governmental action
rather than labor politics, several new and hopeful features emerge. One
is the belated recognition that prices must be forced down and minimum
wages scaled up; secondly, there has been a sudden release of energy
on the part of the bureaucracy, armed with the special powers bestowed
upon the Laniel Ministry last July. Though no one knows how long
the present reforming zeal will last, the decrees published since the
be–
ginning of August mark a departure from the previous habit of placating
entrenched interests at the public expense. In the excitement caused
by
the strike wave it was generally overlooked that most of these measures
were both courageous and novel. They notably empower the administra–
tion to break cartels, diminish tax fraud, cut official red tape, reduce
the excessive number of middlemen, terminate subsidies to alcohol pro–
ducers, and encourage low-cost housing at the eXpense of luxury build–
ing. On top of these welcome changes the military budget for 1954 has
been sharply reduced-partly thanks to increased American aid for
Indo-China. To the Finance Minister, M. Edgar Faure, and his young
and eager brain-trusters (the chief planner is twenty-eight) these re–
forms are just a beginning. It is perhaps unlikely that they will
be
fol–
lowed by anything more drastic under a mainly Conservative govern–
ment, but although "structural reforms" may have to await an electoral
swing to the Left, the first steps have been taken. To that extent the
prolonged parliamentary deadlock in May-July, followed by the August
upheaval, may be said in retrospect to have marked a low point, perhaps
the lowest point France had reached since the Liberation nine years
earlier.
If
a government dominated by elderly Conservatives could give
so much rein to its only left-winger (who happened to be the Finance
Minister), there is no saying what a genuine reform administration
might not do.
