FRANCE: 233 Days of Mendes-France

It was 5 a.m. in Paris. A short, stocky man in a black topcoat hurried out of the old grey stone National Assembly building on the Quai d’Orsay. Minutes earlier Pierre Mendès-France had been Premier of France, the most popular, brilliant and energetic man to hold the office since the inception of the Fourth Republic. Now, ringing in his ears were the hoarse shouts and curses of his colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies still panting from the bitterest, most vindictive and unseemly overthrow of any Premier in recent French history.

Job-hungry French politicians have a word, usé (used-up, soiled), for a government at the moment that it may be voted down and Cabinet portfolios redistributed. Last week the opposition, having tried out its voting strength on a couple of small issues, and satisfied itself that Mendès was about usé, was ready for the big kill. Hunting ground: the debate on North Africa.

Moment of Truth. The dramatic moment came when ex-Premier René Mayer, an influential industrialist (identified with the Rothschild interests) and a member of Mendès’ own Radical Socialist Party, took the rostrum. Mayer, whose constituency is Constantine in Algeria, was against Mendès’ attempts to negotiate a North African settlement with the nationalist rebels. He was plainly on the side of the French settlers, and brushed aside talk of cruelty on the part of the French forces. “Repression always has a cruel aspect,” he said coolly. “But this time it has been just. It was indispensable in order that the guilty might be punished … It is essential that the Moslems faithful to France, who have often been the victims of assassins, be effectively protected.”

As Mayer spoke on, his voice rose, and the Assembly sensed that the “moment of truth” was at hand. “It has been said that France must adapt herself to the evolution of the modern world. If that means adapt herself as she has done in Viet Nam, or as she has done in the Fezzan and in the French establishments in India, I answer non!”

On the front bench, Mendès sat immobile, a little paler than usual, white cuffs peeping out from the sleeves of his dark suit. Mayer turned towards Mendès: “You have already asked many times for the confidence of the Assembly. Today personally I will not be able to vote for it. For I do not know where you are going.” Gaullists, Catholic M.R.P.s and Radical Socialists thundered applause.

Shared Responsibility. Mendès spent the dinner hour furiously revising his speech of rebuttal. By 9 p.m. he was back in his seat. One by one the Deputies drifted in. Dapper ex-Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, sniffing revenge (Mendès replaced him during the Geneva Conference), set down his briefcase, happily opened a newspaper. He was followed by 76-year-old Paul Reynaud, who sat in the fifth row, his old hooded eyes staring straight in front and his head nodding constantly with a nervous tic. The galleries were jammed with spectators, among them Mendès’ pretty wife. Outside stretched a long line of people hoping to be admitted to the few public seats.

Mendès walked briskly to the rostrum, opened a pink cardboard folder containing his speech, and began to speak quietly. “M. René Mayer has spoken of our errors and of their catastrophic results, of our heavy responsibilities. He has shared them and he still shares them, for he has supported with all his votes what we have done. If tomorrow the Assembly condemns us and blames us, it will also condemn and blame M. Mayer who has discovered six months late that the government has betrayed the country, liquidated French Africa and is unworthy of the confidence of the Frenchmen in North Africa.”

For an hour and five minutes Mendès gave sturdy defense of his North African policy, enduring a score of interruptions, half applause, half boos and catcalls.

In a few biting phrases Mendès reproached the M.R.P. for seeking vengeance for vengeance’s sake: “There are only two possible policies in North Africa: that of cooperation and reforms or a policy of repression and force. The government has chosen the first. A fraction of the opposition is favorable to the second. Not all the opposition. The M.R.P. will vote against because it wants to overthrow the government. So politics, odious politics, has once more altered the course of a grand debate on the fate of the nation.”

Shortly before midnight he put the question of confidence.

Into the Green Urns. A period of 24 hours must elapse between the posing and the taking of a vote of confidence. In this period the M.R.P. caucus decided massively against Mendès. The Radical Socialists held a long, painful meeting in which Mendès and Mayer clashed. The party’s Grand Old Man, Edouard Herriot (who had himself quarreled bitterly with Mendès over German rearmament), sent a message from Lyon asking the party to stick by Mendès.

At 2 a.m. the Premier mounted the rostrum. His hour was at hand. Precise and calm as ever, he placed notes in front of him, took a sip of milk, and immediately launched into a frontal attack on the M.R.P., which had charged him with “filling the prisons” in North Africa. Though Mendès’ rebuttal firmly placed the responsibility on the previous (M.R.P.) government, his speech was grim confirmation of French colonial misrule. Said he: “In Morocco we found prisoners who had not even been convicted; among these prisoners, I scarcely dare report to the Assembly, was an eight-year-old child, who had been in prison for more than a year. In view of this, can anyone dare speak to this government of full prisons?” After a brisk, not altogether unfriendly series of exchanges with Deputies, he concluded: “The debate this evening is not on changing Premiers, but on making a choice in North Africa. I repeat this: the choice is among the gravest which the Assembly has had to make for many years. Perhaps the fate of France is at stake.”

Ushers brought in the green urns, in which party leaders deposit either white cards (for the government) or blue cards (against). At 4:50 a.m., Assembly President Pierre Schneiter announced the official count: votes for the government, 273; against. 319—five more than a full majority. Said Schneiter: “Confidence has been refused to the Cabinet.” But Mendès was not quite finished.

Vive la France. Taking the rostrum, he explained that he had not one word of recrimination against the Assembly decision. Deputies, accustomed to silence from defeated Premiers, listened with astonishment as he went on: “The work accomplished by this defeated government will not be wiped out either in this field or in others. . . What has been placed in motion will not be stopped.”

Suddenly the pent-up tension of two days exploded in the Chamber. Deputies, outraged because they thought Mendès was appealing over their heads to the people, broke into an angry roar: “Fascist! Fascist!” They pounded on desks, booed, groaned, howled. Most noise came from the M.R.P. The Socialists (who had supported Mendès throughout) tried to drown them out with applause. M.R.P. Deputy Francois de Menthon came running down the aisle, waving his arms, charging violation of parliamentary rules.

Mendès took a sip of milk, started to say. “The government has the right …” Louder and louder boos and the shrill screech of Communist women Deputies in the upper register interrupted him. “The government has the right . . .” President Schneiter stood up. resplendent in white tie and tails, and called for order.

Mendès gripped the desk, leaned over, his face working with emotion, his lips phrasing sentences that only stenographers could hear: “… I know I have served my country well. I pray that in the future the Assembly may give Frenchmen new reasons for hope and may conquer the hatreds which it has too often put on display. Vive la France!”

Now everyone was standing, booing or cheering. Mendès stepped down, picked up his briefcase, hurried out.

Record of Accomplishment. Behind him, as he climbed into his black Citroën, Pierre Mendès-France left not only a noisy Chamber but 233 days of accomplishment: He had:

¶ Negotiated a cease-fire in Indo-China.

¶ Forced the Assembly to decide on EDC (against) and then to accept German rearmament.

¶ Opened negotiations for a settlement in Tunisia by offering autonomy.

¶ Reached agreement with Germany on the Saar.

¶ Persuaded Britain to keep four divisions permanently in Europe.

¶ Restricted the overproduction of alcohol, issued free milk to schoolchildren.

¶ Adopted several overdue constitutional reforms, introduced essential electoral reforms.

¶ Raised the wages of industrial workers, and some government servants.

In his 233 days Premier Mendès-France had visited Geneva, Tunisia, Britain, Belgium, Canada, the U.S., Italy and Germany, confronting chiefs of state as he confronted his own Parliament, with subtly chosen, blunt decisions. He scorned the usual French political practices that exalted negativism into a philosophy. Watching him, millions of Frenchmen forgot their political lethargy and cynicism, cheered “le style Mendès-France.” But the politicians whom he so coldly appraised as coldly disliked him. They feared his popularity and could not forgive him his success. They joined. Right and Left, to bring him down before he could proceed to the program he most wanted to put over: a dramatic overhaul of the French economic system.

The Assembly wanted no more energetic individualists for a while. President Coty’s first choice for 21st Premier of France since 1945 was Antoine Pinay, a small-time businessman with a reputation for getting along with people. He held the job for nearly ten months in 1952.