France: The Fall of Parliament

The Algeria problem was out of the way. The threat of S.A.O. terror had been subdued. Finally France’s politicians found their courage. For years the lot of them had howled for De Gaulle’s head, but only now did they decide that it was safe to try to bring him down. As a result, in the next six weeks Charles de Gaulle will be fighting for his political life.

In a sense De Gaulle provoked the revolt himself, by his plan to change the constitution of the Fifth Republic so that future French Presidents would be elected by popular vote rather than by a privileged electorate of 80,000 parliamentarians and municipal and departmental officials. To bring about this change, De Gaulle decided to bypass Parliament and take the issue directly to the people in a referendum scheduled for Oct. 28.

On television one afternoon last week, De Gaulle warned that unless he got the massive support he wanted, he might abandon France to the political and economic disarray from which he had rescued it in 1958. Cried De Gaulle: “The weight and influence of France, so recently considered the ‘sick man of Europe,’ are recognized today throughout the world!” Taking personal credit—with good reason—for France’s present political stability, sound money and favorable trade balance, he said: “For myself, each yes that you give me will be proof of your confidence and your encouragement. It is your response that will tell me whether I can and whether I should pursue my task in the service of France.”

Short Shrift. Soon after De Gaulle went off the air, Parliament assembled in an angry mood. In speech after speech, Deputies warned against the risk of dictatorship, reminding France that direct presidential elections in 1848 resulted in the seizure of power by Bonaparte’s nephew, Louis Napoleon. A motion of censure was passed, charging De Gaulle with “violating the constitution of which he is the guardian, and thus opening a breach through which an adventurer might some day pass to overthrow the Republic and suppress liberty.”

Long-divided Socialists, Radicals, Popular Republicans and right-wing Independents, who had all opposed De Gaulle for his policy on Europe and on defense, and particularly for whittling away parliamentary prerogatives, were now in eager coalition. They were attacking the stablest government that France has had in this century, having themselves provided very nearly the worst; many of De Gaulle’s opponents had served as revolving-door Premiers in the disastrous Fourth Republic—Antoine Pinay for nine months, Pierre Mendes-France for eight months, Pierre Pflimlin for 17 days.

Even Veteran Paul Reynaud, 84, who had first brought De Gaulle into government service in the desperate days of 1940, tongue-lashed his former protege. “Why have we got into this state of intellectual chaos?” Reynaud demanded. “It is because General de Gaulle wants to heap together the honors of the chief of state and the powers of the Prime Minister, to be Churchill and King George VI, Adenauer and Liibke.” Earlier, Reynaud had pettishly told friends: “He can’t do this to me, the first Gaullist of all.” Ex-Premier Guy Mollet, the Socialist chief who had been instrumental in bringing De Gaulle back to power in 1958. snapped, “They are presenting us with an image of the constitution so badly deformed that it is unrecognizable.”

Early to Bed. With Assembly President Jacques Chaban-Delmas wielding a weary gavel, the end came in the classic parliamentary tradition of France: an all-night debate in the Assembly, testy Deputies exchanging insults, clamorous calls for order, and the final parade of parliamentarians from their red-plush benches down to the Speaker’s tribune to vote overwhelming censure of De Gaulle’s hand-picked Premier Georges Pompidou. Only 172 of the 176 members of De Gaulle’s own party, U.N.R., and 28 other Deputies stuck with the government. The decisive 241st vote was cast by the Communist Deputy and party boss, Maurice Thorez.

The only traditional ritual missing was Pompidou’s ride through darkened Paris streets to awaken the President and present his government’s resignation. De Gaulle, indifferent to the revolt of Parliament, went early to bed and left word that he was not to be disturbed. Next day, still ignoring the crisis, De Gaulle went to the Compiegne forest in eastern France to view the most extensive army maneuvers since, 1938. “Here it’s another universe,” said De Gaulle expansively, as he chatted with officers and men in the first major effort to make the French Army forget the disastrous colonial past and accept the European future.

After returning from Compiegne, De Gaulle finally acknowledged the vote of censure by ordering the dissolution of the National Assembly in accordance with the constitution; this means that new elections will be held next month.

Ceremonial Chaos. De Gaulle has a fair chance of winning the referendum on the presidency because he cares deeply about the issue, and is putting his entire prestige behind it. But he may lose the election, particularly if he stays aloof from the campaign, as he well may. His followers have urged him to hold the referendum and the election at the same time, but he has refused, not wanting to mix what he considers a great constitutional issue involving France’s future with mere party politics; he even seems to have little interest in supporting his own U.N.R. candidates at the polls.

In the election, the opposition parties may further reduce the U.N.R.’s present 176-member strength by forming a united front against the Gaullists in certain districts. In the new Assembly, the opposition may therefore be able instantly to vote another motion of censure against De Gaulle or deny him funds. In that case, the President might resign and go home to Colombey as he did in 1946, or he might learn to compromise with Parliament. Theoretically he could also invoke Article 16 of the constitution, which enables the President to rule by decree, reducing the Assembly to impotence.

De Gaulle’s followers have no program —only a hero. De Gaulle’s opponents can certainly make a case that the presidential system he proposes, unlike the U.S. system, would concentrate too much power in the hands of the executive. But, fatally, they have no alternative. During four years of criticizing De Gaulle, the opposition leaders have produced no ideas of their own on how France might be governed with both freedom and stability. They offer nothing more than the old parliamentary system, a return to the articulate anarchy, the ceremonial chaos, of the Fourth Republic.