FRANCE: Wave of Fear

Finance Minister Paul Ramadier appealed for “austerity a I’Anglaise.” If France’s motorists would just exercise restraint and “voluntarily” reduce their gasoline consumption by 30% for the next six weeks, Ramadier explained, France could get by without rationing or drastic bans on auto travel. As a help to the motorists’ “civic spirit,” the government announced that wholesalers were limiting filling stations to 70% of their normal supplies, and gas pumps would be shut down over weekends.

Unlike the English, the French trust neither their government nor each other to exercise self-restraint. Gas stations were instantly besieged by vociferous motorists bent on getting their tanks filled with gas and also the gallon cans they brought along. When the government banned the sale of gas except directly into car tanks, they bought rubber tubes, siphoned the gas out of the tanks into home containers, then rushed back to the gas pumps for more.

Motorists were equally undeterred when harassed filling station operators instituted an informal limit of ten liters (about 2% gallons) per customer, simply made the rounds of three or four stations to get a full tank. In Paris every dawn found at least 40 or 50 cars lined up before every gas pump, and by every noon the pumps were dry.

Fuel oil for domestic and industrial use was cut by one-third, and many houses, apartment buildings and offices were already feeling the chill. The famed oil-burning “Blue Train” that runs from Paris to the Riviera was canceled—setting off a cry of anguish from Riviera hotelkeepers, who estimate tourist traffic is already off 75%. Housewives caught the panic, and driven by the memory of what items were scarce in World War II, stripped shops of soap, candles, rice, canned goods and sugar (though France actually has a sugar surplus). Premier Guy Mollet pleaded for calm and discipline, scolded: “During the last few days, a new wave of fear seems to have broken over part of France.”