FRANCE: Ill Wind Rising

In Fontainebleau last week squads of workmen yanked down statues of Lafayette and John Joseph Pershing. And in Vichy Marshal Henri Philippe Petain finally yanked off the veil of diplomatic phrasing in which for months he has swathed the face of French totalitarianism. He broadcast the basic rules of his new French order which he hopes will be profitably wedded to Adolf Hitler’s new European order.

Words. The blunt phrases of French Fascism’s aged favorite were in the megalomaniac strain of all dictators. “In 1917,” rumbled he, “I put an end to mutinies. In 1940 I put a period to our rout. Today it is from you yourselves that I want to save you.” There was nothing unusual about the rules that Marshal Pétain announced—they came right out of the common totalitarian rule book.

> Our parliamentary policy is dead.

> Authority no longer comes from below. It properly is that which I give or which I delegate.

> Activity of political parties . . . is suspended.

> I will double the means of police action.

> A group of commissars of public power is created. . . . They will have the mission of ferreting out and destroying obstacles.

> I have decided to use the powers given me . . . to judge those responsible for our disaster.*

For complete totalitarian equipment, France seemed to lack only some such easily chosen totem as the swastika, fasces or hammer & sickle.

But Marshal Pétain’s speech also eloquently emphasized, by inference, what has long been suspected—that French totalitarianism is meeting much more open internal resistance than Hitler or Mussolini has ever had to face. Last week some of that resistance led to violence. The Marshal railed against Big Business opposition to Vichy, but a vastly more general discontent could be heard between his lines.

“Frenchmen!” he exclaimed, “I have grave things to tell you! For the last several weeks I have felt an ill wind rising in many regions of France. Disquiet is overtaking minds, doubt is gaining control of spirits. The authority of my Government is made the subject of discussion; orders are often being ill-executed. In an atmosphere of false rumors and intrigues the forces of reconstruction are growing discouraged. . . . The national revolution . . . has not yet forced its way through because between the people and me . . . there has risen a double screen of those favoring the old regime and those serving trusts. The troops of the old regime are legion. . . . We must start in now to smash their undertakings by decimating their leaders.”

Actions. Prime question was whether Marshal Pétain’s words portended quick French re-entry into World War II. Feeling was widespread that they might preamble an alliance with Germany against Russia, or the use of the French Fleet against British shipping, or joint action with Germany in French North Africa.

Last week Marshal Pétain raised his sly little Vice Premier Admiral Jean François Darlan to a new eminence—Minister of National Defense. Thereby Admiral Darlan apparently added to his Navy command that of Vichy’s Army, whose largest. forces are in North Africa under General Maxime Weygand.

General Weygand was said to be still violently bucking Marshal Pétain’s and Admiral Darlan’s wish to admit German arms to North Africa. If so, Admiral Darlan’s new appointment must have greatly increased the chance of General Weygand’s walking out from under the Vichy banner and taking 16,000,000 North Africans with him. Among those who scoffed at any idea of his disaffection was famed French Journalist “Pertinax” (now in the U.S.), who reported that as recently as June 22 General Weygand had given French Legionnaires in Africa the Fascist salute and said: “We know today that national duty cannot bring us to the side of a former ally who has become a foe.”

Meanwhile the application of Marshal Pétain’s words inside Unoccupied France was speedily going forward. Appointed Minister of the Interior was tall, vigorous, horn-rimmed Pierre Pucheu, 42, recently Secretary of State for Industrial Production, formerly French foreign-relations expert of the Continental steel cartel, longtime Fascist agitator with the Croix de Feu and Jacques Doriot.

Calling in Vichy’s police commissioners, Minister Pucheu gave them a lecture on the French version of the Gestapo: “In a state which has to guarantee total unanimity, it is necessary that the [police] officials are at the same time convinced fighters and ardent propagandists.”

At week’s end the “rubbish” of French parliamentarianism was swept off the totalitarian floor. Salaries of French Senators and Deputies, which had curiously survived the Republic for 14 months, were stopped as of Sept. 30.

-Apparently Marshal Pétain himself will determine the fate of Messieurs Blum, Daladier, Gamelin, Reynaud, and other Third Republicans long held in jail, ostensibly awaiting French Supreme Court trial.