Soberly, above the gilded angels on the Tribune, white-haired Gaston Doumergue faced the Chamber of Deputies last week. Disregarding Communist bellowings of “Assassin! Assassin!” he declared:
“I have not spoken from this place for 20 years. I am not Premier out of any ambition. . . . I came with one great hope. I thought that the Parliament really desired to effect for a time the united front required in the situation. And it seems to me that the spectacle of this Parliament united around an old man in the resolve to save France and its constitution, will give to our country great prestige in the world.”
Most of the Deputies sprang to their feet, sang the Marseillaise, gave the emergency Cabinet of Premiers a hulking vote of confidence (402-to-125).
The sizzling dynamite in the Stavisky scandal was temporarily quenched by referring the entire matter to an investigating committee of 44 Deputies, a group unwieldy enough almost certainly to muff the investigation. In Paris and the provinces workmen hurried to replace broken pillars, smashed street lights, shop windows, fire hydrants—every trace of last fortnight’s bloody riots. The Cabinet did its best to give taxpayers something else to think about. A snarling tariff war with Britain got under way (see p. 13). Foreign Minister Louis Barthou sent a blunt answer to Germany’s latest demand for rearmament. He made three points:
1) France, as usual, insists on absolute guarantees of security before agreeing to any disarmament convention.
2) France will not disarm as a bribe to prevent Germany rearming.
3) France insists on counting both Storm Troopers and Leaders’ Escort Troops as part of the regular German army.
It was unfortunate for French politicians that just as these distractions were getting under way and the riots in Vienna were monopolizing the front pages of the Press, French constabulary in Beirut, Syria should have arrested Elie Sacazan. A second Stavisky is Swindler Sacazan, director of one of Stavisky’s companies. Swindler Sacazan founded two banks and a bucket shop in Paris, all of which collapsed for a loss of approximately $22,500,000 to French investors. Twenty-three indictments have been brought against him in the past six years. He was sentenced to two years in jail in Algiers, not a day of which has he served. The fact that Premier Chautemps’ Minister of Justice, Eugene Raynaldy, was accused of accepting a gift of 250 shares of Sacazan stock was the straw that broke the Chautemps Cabinet late last month. Sacazan was in custody last week. He had not been shot and he was perfectly able to testify.
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