FRANCE: So Little Time

Never before had the French Communists appeared so defiant, so malicious, so isolated and so hell-bent for chaos. There was symptomatic violence in the Assembly chamber, and real violence, bloody, ugly and portentous, in the streets.

In the chamber, Communist Jacques Duclos reached new highs of invective. When he attacked U.S. aid to France, he was jeered and booed by voices from all the non-Communist benches. Comrade Duclos yelled that Premier Ramadier “wanted to obtain thanks from Washington by taking to your masters there the death certificate of French Communism.”

Ramadier, caught between Communist intransigence and the rising strength of Charles de Gaulle, asked for a vote of confidence. The opposition came mainly from the Communists and the far Right. The Socialists and Popular Republicans voted solidly for Ramadier, and a sprinkle of votes from other parties enabled him to squeak through, by 300-to-280. He had gained a little time; the darkening situation made it seem desperately little.

If there was to be civil war, the Communists staged what looked like an opening skirmish one night around the Place de 1’Etoile, in which stands the Arch of Triumph. At 9 p.m. in the Salle Wiagram an organization called “The League for the Rights of Peoples Oppressed by the Soviets” had scheduled a rally at which Polish, Rumanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Yugoslav refugees would tell what things were like under the Stalinist boot. That morning the Communist paper L’Humanité had summoned the faithful to break up the meeting. “Everyone to the Wagram tonight at 7! Silence to the insulters of the Soviet Union! The way to prevent the meeting is to get there first.”

A Delicate Question. Forewarned of trouble. TIME Correspondent André Laguerre got there early. He cabled:

A swollen orange moon, hanging low in the sky like a Chinese lantern, peered fitfully through the clammy fog. It was a raw night, and Parisians pulled their coats tightly around them as they hurried back to unheated homes. Beside me, huddled in muffler and tattered topcoat, Anatole Carvin, 61, sat on a rickety stool and hawked his roast chestnuts.

“Chauds, les Matrons, chauds!”

After ignoring a police order to clear out before trouble started, Anatole and I discussed the affairs of France. He was pessimistic but philosophical. “The Communists are going to make trouble in France,” he said. “They are not all a bad lot, but they are not intelligent. Their leaders are dirty types. Well, if we are going; to have a ‘coup dur’ we can take it; we have seen others.

“De Gaulle is a great Frenchman, but he means trouble. De Gaulle always means trouble for France. I don’t know if he makes trouble, or if he is just there when trouble comes. It is a delicate question. Tonight we shall have some trouble. But I am not going home until I have sold my chestnuts.”

At 6 o’clock the police began to arrive. Between 6 and 8, trucks brought 3,000 blue-uniformed agents de ville, armed with revolvers and batons, and khaki-clad Gardes Mobiles in steel helmets, carrying rifles. Nearby subway stations were closed and guarded by groups of cops from the Service d’Ordre, the dreaded riot squad of the Prefecture of Police; under their capes they hid Tommy guns.

“The Police Are with Us.” The fog was lifting as demonstrators streamed toward the Avenue de Wagram, coming on foot, silently and purposefully, from all directions.

Soon after 7 there were 5,000 people at the Etoile. The crowd was singing the Internationale and yelling “Hang De Gaulle!” “Ramadier must resign!” and “The police are with us”—the last being a Communist illusion which was soon to be rudely shattered.

Three thousand demonstrators were massed beyond the lower barricade, at the Place des Ternes. It was here that fighting began—not too violently at first; 30 men climbed over the trestles, hitting out at the police with bare fists. The police drew their white batons and lashed out. Three men were knocked to the ground, the others retreated.

A little before 8, the trestles holding back the crowd at the Etoile gave way with a loud crack, and the demonstrators swarmed over the police. Up to this point the police had acted with restraint; now came the peremptory order to clear the avenue completely. Suddenly everything was incredibly confused; I tried to get out of the melee by flattening myself against a tree. Police batons flailed, crashed with a sickening crunch on faces and shoulders. The Gardes Mobiles drove their rifle butts at the heads of the oncoming Communists; one of the police was shouting “Salauds, salauds” at the top of his voice. The guards wore bayonets at their belts, but did not fix them. I did not hear a shot.

Suddenly, three yards away from me, a guard collapsed with a shriek, hugging his face, which had been sliced open with a pocketknife. Two other guards jumped at the knifer, knocked him to the ground, rammed the butts of their rifles at his mouth and jaw long after he was senseless.

“Ah, les Fascistes. . . .” On the curb, propped up against the wall, sat a dark woman; her dress had been torn off, and her naked left breast had been blackened by blows. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and she was sobbing heartrendingly. Her name was Lise Ricol, and she is a prominent member of the Communist “Union des Femmes Françaises.”

Now the police were hitting at everything in sight, charging in a mad swirl under the inadequate light of the moon and the pallid electric lamps. Groans and shouts rang in my ears. I managed to hide in a side street. Demonstrators wrenched up the iron rails around the tree where I had been standing and used them as swords or clubs; others managed to tear up the paving stones from the curb, and hurled them at the police, often missing and striking their own comrades.

Yard by yard the Communists were driven back. Militarily speaking, their operation had already failed.

A strange man came up to me. He seemed uninjured. He held his arms stiffly by his side. His eyes were wide open, wild and staring, and tears were pouring down his cheeks. He was whispering hoarsely, “Les Fascistes, les Fascistes, les Fascistes. . . .” I asked him his name and what he was doing. He looked at me without understanding and whispered, “Ah, les Fascistes, les Fascistes. . . .”

“La Garce!” One woman near me had a titanic struggle with a giant policeman; he had been calmly walking through the crowd, slamming with his white baton at heads on either side of him, mowing a path like a man with a scythe in a field. When the policeman reached the woman, she flung herself at his legs, clawing and kicking. Without changing expression, he shifted his stick to his left hand, and with his right forearm dealt her a terrific swipe which sent her skidding across the road to the curb, against which she gashed her head. The cop looked up and said, “La garce!” (that tramp).

At 9 o’clock the Communists had lost the battle. An envoy came from party headquarters and ordered the demonstrators to evacuate. The ringleaders retired immediately; the police continued to scuffle with laggards, but by 10 France’s worst riot since the war was over.

At this point, the League for the Rights of Peoples Oppressed by the Soviets was allowed to hold its meeting. Under heavy police escort, 1,200 people—carefully screened by inspectors—showed up to hear that behind the Iron Curtain was “a police system without precedent in the history of humanity, which annihilates all freedom of expression . . . a murderous ideology which shrinks at nothing.”

What the Moon Saw. Shortly before midnight, calm had returned to the Arch of Triumph. The moon shone down dully on the litter of broken bottles, rocks, clubs and park railings strewn over the road. Little pools of blood and dirt had collected, here & there, in the gutters. Walking home down the Champs Elysées, where nightclubs were open and operating as usual, I heard a familiar voice near me: “Chauds, les Marrons, chauds!” It was Anatole, back in business. The little men of Paris were carrying on. All over France, the little men, who detest and fear the violence which goes with all kinds of political extremism, were carrying on, and hoping for the best.