When the French Communist Party lost 140seats fortnight ago in the French National Assembly, reducing itsstrength to ten, it lost more than its old power to block legislationand raise general hell. It also lost close to $1,000,000 a year inparty revenues.
Deputies are paid about $700 a month.Communist Deputies hand over their entire salaries to the party, whichthen pays their taxes for them and doles back to all but the bigwigs aslittle as $143 a month apiece. Losing this steady income from thegovernment it sought to overthrow, the Communist Party last weekdecided to economize, abandon three of its money-losing regionalnewspapers.