FRENCH POLITICS
679
That such an administration will be assembled in the near future
is indeed unlikely. All one can claim is that, for the first time in years,
some of the elements of a progressive combination are in existence. These
include the fonnal dissolution of the Gaullist group in Parliament, and
the consequent emergence of a number of left-wing ex-Gaullists with a
hankering after social refonn; the re-activation of labor; the growing
pressure of the left-wingers inside the center groups in Parliament and
in the country; and last but not least the emergence of some young,
capable and progressive figures in the political no-man's-land between
the Socialists and the Conservative bloc in Parliament.
If
the prolonged
deadlock last summer did not in the end lead to the formation of the
"Mendes-France majority" projected by some political wire-pullers, it
did compel the elder statesmen to make room for Mendes-France's po–
litical ally, Edgar Faure. Through Faure--a stocky, chain-smoking econ–
omist who once studied Oriental languages, speaks fluent Russian, and
at 45 has already been Prime Minister (for forty days last year)–
Mendes-France obtained a foothold in the Laniel government.
1
Faure's
wife edits
La N ef,
which is virtually a Socialist periodical, and Mendes–
France at least, though officially a leading Radical, is in fact in some
ways closer to the moderate Socialists than to the majority of his nominal
supporters. It is through these two men, rather than under its own
stearn, that the Socialist Party expects one day to recover the influence
it lost in 1951, when it deliberately left the government to undergo a
"cure in opposition." This roundabout approach may not seem a very
hopeful way of initiating a Socialist recovery, but in Europe the issue
of "planning" versus "free enterprise" is no longer a party matter; least
of all in France, where the cleavage runs through all political groups,
with the exception of the Communists and the Conservative remnant.
The "Mendes-France majority," if and when it is one day pieced to–
gether, will assemble under the banner of State action to lift the
French economy out of the doldrums. Until then the bourgeoisie is being
given a last chance to make good on its claim of being able to run the
modern industrial system. . . .
These issues are considerably more important in the long run than
Indo-China, whose significance is chiefly that of a dead weight. The
war there has dramatized France's dependence on NATO, the problems
1 Or so it seemed on the eve of the Radical Party congress at Aix-Ies-Bains
(September 17-20) which witnessed another impressive speech by Mendes-France,
this time culminating in the startling phrase, "We are in 1788!" (i.e., on the
eve of an upheaval). The proceedings of the congress suggested that Mendes–
France is at the moment somewhat isolated in his Cassandra role.
