FRANCE: One-Timer’s Fun

Bustle, dash and wide-awake words became suddenly the fashion in drowsy French officialdom when Andre Tardieu, “The Most American of Frenchmen,” stepped up to power (TIME, Nov. 11). News last week was of night conferences, Sunday conferences, even mealtime conferences (a sacrilege in France). The new Prime Minister in his hard, square-cut, double-breasted business suit was putting through their paces the diplomats of Paris, by tradition silkily double-tailed, white-spatted.

In rapid-fire succession M. Tardieu received Germany’s unctuous Dr. Leopold vori Hoesch, Russia’s slow, thick-spectacled Valerian Dovgalevsky, Bulgaria’s roving Foreign Minister Athanase Burov, and the Ambassador of France in London, talented epigrammarian Aime Joseph de Fleurian. Keen as mustard at the fun of holding such diplomatic confabs for the first time in his life as Prime Minister, M. Tardieu created the impression that he plans to take the foreign policy of France somewhat out of the hands of his great Foreign Minister, Aristide Briand. B’rer Briand, having been twelve times Prime Minister, yielded the limelight to One-Timer-Tardieu last week without jealousy. But there was talk that Tardieu I’Americain even plans to accompany Aristide the Great to the three international conferences scheduled for next January—at London (Disarmament), Geneva (League) and The Hague (Reparations). Such a move would make M. Briand the No. 2 Frenchman at international gatherings for the first time since Locarno (TIME, Oct. 26, 1925). He would surely resent it. A quarrel is possible. Years ago, before political exigencies made them colleagues, M. Tardieu once scathingly called the pacific policy of M. Briand that of “a dead rat floating with the current.”

Flaming Flandin. Apes of positivist Andre Tardieu last week were most of his ministers. Out to the Franco-German frontier rushed War Minister Andre Maginot and was soon thundering that the Chamber of Deputies must vote extraordinary credits to complete the fortifications scheduled to be in place before French troops are withdrawn from the Rhineland next year (TIME, Aug. 26). But the archpositivist of last week was Minister of Commerce Pierre-Etienne Flandin.

“Cordial commercial relations between France and the United States will be impossible,” he flamed, “if their pending tariff bill is adopted in its present form (see p. 13)! . . . I will protect the com-merce of France in the same way that other countries protect theirs. . . . If others build tariff walls, France will build tariff walls! . . . But before inaugurating a boycott by France of American raw materials—if the time ever comes when France feels driven to take such measures —a conference might first be held with the United States Secretary of Commerce.”

Asked about the rumor that General Motors of the U. S. is buying out Andre Citroen, “The Ford of France,” and also the great Puegeot works (TIME, Aug. 5), M. Flandin answered instantly: “I recently asked Citroen whether there was any truth in the report as far as the Citroen plant was concerned, and was told that it was entirely without foundation.”

“How Much to Get Out?” A tactful host to 16 Germans during the week was Minister of Public Works Georges Pernot. They came to start negotiations for return to Germany of the Saar Basin, huge Franco-German coal & ore pit ceded to France until 1935 by the Treaty of Peace of Versailles. In effect, German Chief Delegate Dr. Karl von Simson asked: “How much will you take to get out?”

The Tardieu Cabinet was challenged in the French Chamber by Deputies of the Right—including onetime President Millerand—who charged that it is premature to think of returning the Saar to Germany now, even at a good price. With instant decision, One-Timer Tardieu demanded a vote of confidence, risked losing the Prime Ministry and much fun, won decisively by a majority of 93 votes.