PARIS LETTER
89
a new bottle for all this new wine---or shall we say, milk?-a fresh,
simple style of presentation which seems frankly inspired by the Anglo–
American popular press. Thus, for example, economic matters are
handled, not by some unemployed poet, but-with a wealth of charts
and graphs-by Alfred Sauvy, head of the National Statistics Institute.
It
is easy to ridicule this rather odd-looking journal and, of course,
"everybody" does. The conservative Right sneers at the "new Robe–
spierres," as Senator Laffargue called them the other day. The fellow–
travelers around Claude Bourdet's
Observateur
and the Catholic "pro–
gressives" of
Esprit
snipe away indefatigably with their old ideological
field-pieces, especially since their dream of a popular front has been
thwarted by Mendes-France's refusal to associate with the Communists.
The esthetes around J acques Laurent's
Arts
carry on an uproarious and
frequently telling campaign against Fran<;oise Giroud, who is responsible
for the "back of the book": literature, theater, fashions, etc. But I have
no space for these details-not this time, at least. The important thing
is that a new center of political and intellectual energies has come into
being. Whatever its immediate influence-and the legislative elections
will provide a clue to that-I think it is needed here and will survive.
The old French idea of civilization as a radiant center sweeping
the outer darkness like a lighthouse- it no longer works, not even as
a metaphor. Not even here.
L'Express,
like the European Movement, is
based upon a new reality-world, as it were, a shared new sense of how
things are; and so, for all their political quarrels, they have more in
common than they think.
J.
H. Goldsmith
