Can France Come Back?

by HILARY ST. GEORGE SAUNDERS

I

SOME time ago Monsieur Schuman, French Foreign Minister, was taking an early morning walk in the gardens of his official residence on the Quai d’Orsay. In the course of it he met an elderly gardener at work upon a flower bed. “Be off with you,” said the gardener, “the public are not allowed in these gardens.” “But I am the Minister.” The gardener gazed distastefully at Monsieur Schuman. “Oh well,” he said at last, “if you’re the Minister ...” and turning his back, went on with his work.

Such an attitude may betoken republican indifference to the majesty of office, a contempt for men “drest in a little brief authority,” or a general apathy towards government and all that it implies. For myself I think the gardener’s state of mind was compounded of all three. That autumn morning he was unconsciously giving expression to the general malaise of France — a malaise with which our grandfathers would have been familiar but which, it is earnestly to be hoped, our children will regard as a phenomenon of the past; a feature of eight grim decades of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when France was in grave danger of losing her soul.

If, as I trust and believe, France is to recover, it can be only through the help and sympathy and, above all, the understanding of Britain and America. Britain will be of help because she is France’s immediate neighbor and can provide the nearest market; America because she has risen to the greatness of her post-war responsibilities and is beginning, against all previous habits and ways of thought, to grasp the significance of world power.

First, then, why is it that the cement which bound together the various elements of French life seems to have crumbled?

French history shows that whenever the French people are oppressed, or imagine themselves to be so, they are capable of sinking their petty political squabbles and of uniting against the oppressor. They remain united while the oppression lasts and then sink back again into their former condition. Sometimes, as under Napoleon I, the oppression has taken the form of an enforced discipline; at other times it has been bigoted and reactionary, as in the attempt of Charles X to impose the Charte.

At the beginning of the eight grim decades French unity, produced by Prussian exaction, was so great that the crushing indemnity of five milliards of francs imposed by Bismarck, after the War of 1870, was paid, to his chagrined astonishment, within twelve months. But note what followed. The Third Republic came into being, and between 1870 and 1940 France had 142 governments — about one every six months. The cement of suffering disappeared like snow. It reappeared for a few years during and immediately after the First World War, vanished even more swiftly than before in the uneasy twenties, and did not return until 1941, when once again German oppression was able to bind Frenchmen of all classes and shades of opinion together in a common hatred of the Boche.

This time, however, two new factors influenced the situation. In 1942 France was entirely, not partially, occupied by her hereditary foe and she was cursed by two governments: the legally — or thought to be legally—constituted administration of Pétain inside her frontiers and the dissident government of de Gaulle outside.

A divided allegiance was in the circumstances inevitable. Many thousands, and indeed millions, of Frenchmen sincerely felt that they owed allegiance to Pétain as the rightful ruler of France called to this position in the turmoil of the summer of 1940. Among them were nine tenths of the armed forces, whose members had sworn an oath of allegiance. Of these the majority certainly felt that it was in the best interests of their country to keep that oath, a sentiment which explains the difficulties Eisenhower met with in North Africa and his painful decision to support Durlan. The upholders of de Gaulle were just as convinced as the Feminists that they were acting patriotically in helping the Allies to set France free.

2

As the sun of Pétain set and that of de Gaulle climbed the sky, the unity of Frenchmen held firm largely because the General had the good sense to include the French Communists in his administration. This union, however, gradually fell to pieces as memories of the occupation faded. It was followed by a witch hunt for so-called Collaborators in which the Communists took a leading part until, finally, they began to pose as the sole bona fide Resistants. An effort was made by de Gaulle to consolidate his position by the formation of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP). It obtained a notable success in the first general election, but when he saw this party gradually departing from its electoral program and making contact with the Socialists and even with the Communists, he formed the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF), which has lately made striking gains in the by-elections and in the municipal and departmental elections.

In the political field today de Gaulle is the most enigmatic of all the leaders, or so-called leaders, of France. No one knows precisely how strong he is, and no one knows precisely what he would do if he came to power. “I would vote for him,”said a middle-aged doctor of medicine to me at Caen last summer, “but I would never shake him by the hand.”And this attitude is typical of that adopted by many of the middle classes towards this compound of Clemenceau, Jeanne d’Arc, and Tartuffe.

While few Frenchmen can be found who will not express a feeling of admiration and gratitude to the General for his attitude in 1940, this is tempered by many reservations. He was, say not a few, badly advised in taking the Communists into the government which he formed in North Africa. The Left say he will be a dictator and is an adventurer. They have, of course, General Boulanger in mind and, to a certain extent, Louis Napoleon. Frenchmen in general dislike and distrust politicians with military rank. The Right — especially the Radical-Socialists — fear de Gaulle’s clerical tendencies, while the leaders of the MRP, though they would never confess as much, oppose him because many of them owe their present positions to him and dislike him in consequence.

On the other hand, many turn to him because they are convinced of his integrity and consider that his action in 1940 and during the period of the Liberation qualifies him again to take the lead in a non-party government which will, for once in France, really govern. This, coupled with rising disgust at the recent unnecessary political crisis, is probably the cause of his party’s success in the elections lately. It is curious to note that many look to him as a future General Monk — though what kind of royalty he is expected to restore, no one seems able to say.

In one important respect de Gaulle, if he attains to power, is likely to prove a great nuisance. He is chauvinistic to an extreme degree and has lately declared himself strongly opposed to the arrangements made for defense by the Western powers. The French Army is for him still potentially the finest in Europe if not the world, and no foreigner must be allowed to decide how best it should be used. Remembering its dismal record in 1940 it is easy to ridicule this view, especially as in equipment and general readiness for battle the French are still a long way behind their potential allies. On the other hand, to proclaim in season and out of season the might of French arms may well be, in the opinion of a not incapable general, the only sure means of inducing the French to fight if an unkind fate decrees war.

Here it is well to open our eyes wide. The French are sick and tired of war — so sick and so tired that I doubt whether any event short of an atomic bomb on Paris would induce them to spring to arms.

On one point all Frenchmen of every class and political creed are agreed. To help Germany to recover is madness and dangerous madness. Germany invaded France in 1870, in 1914, and in 1940. Each time she did so, she increased the scale of her brutalities and of the damage she caused. Beaten in 1918, she was allowed within ten years to develop the Ruhr to her heart’s content and she did so, producing not the goods and products necessary to a European recovery but the weapons and panoply of Mars. Only the French sought by their singlehanded occupation of the Ruhr to prevent this catastrophe. British pressure and American indifference were far too strong for them. They had to desist and World War II was the deplorable consequence.

Now once more these nations which do not have to live side by side with the Germans, as do the French, are demanding that Germany should be allowed to recover. Against this every Frenchman sets his face with flintlike obstinacy. The fact remains — and it is of vital importance for both the British and the Americans to understand it—that no French government dare acquiesce in the AngloAmerican policy of turning the Ruhr industries over to the Germans even in the form of nationalization under a milk-and-water Allied control. If it did, it would not last twenty-four hours. The French will take no chances with Germany, and the sooner Britain and America face that fact with all its implications, the sooner will conditions be created in which a genuine and permanent understanding with France will become possible.

3

IN the political sphere the general situation, though hard to remedy, is easy to diagnose, but in the economic sphere matters are more complicated. To an Englishman resignedly taxed to the limit, and to an American shouldering a heavy burden to provide the wherewithal for the European Recovery Program, the behavior of the average Frenchman, faced with the disagreeable duty of paying his taxes, seems altogether unintelligible.

Why does France again and again shrug off all programs of taxation, disregard or refuse to accept any system of controls such as that which Britain groans under but submits to, and fail to initiate reforms which to the outsider seem elementary to recovery? There is no glib answer to these questions, but the underlying reason for this unhappy state of affairs is to be found deeply embedded in the French character.

Individually the French are most economical in their private finances, but collectively they appear to have little thought for the public economy, and remain helpless in the face of the financial and moral corruption in the national administration. Scandal after scandal is discovered and announced in the public press. The smaller fry are arrested and the case then goes to a juge d’instruction; but he sits in private and the affair is thus consigned to oblivion without ever seeing the light of day, and a new scandal provides the proverbial red herring. One of the most notorious of these affairs was the “ Wine Scandal" which forced a former Premier to bring a libel action against a former Food Minister.

It is the constant recurrence of these unsavory affairs that has developed the distrust which the average Frenchman feels towards taxation. “Why does not the state undertake severe and drastic economies,” said a black-coated worker to me in a cafe in Perigueux a short time ago, “before squeezing the last sou out of the unfortunate taxpayer who is now in the paradoxical position of seeing the state giving itself over to the wildest prodigality while he himself is obliged to observe the most rigid economy?

“Why,” he continued, warming to his subject, “does the state make such a show of prosecuting black marketeers and traffickers of every kind and, when they are convicted, merely impose fines which are so small as to be out of all proportion to the harm that these people have done to the national economy and moral welfare of the country? Why does the state remain stagnant and buried in administrative routine at a moment when a modern taxation system and simplified fiscal regime is needed to bring in money? Why is such a lot of fuss being made about fiscal reform when administrative, technical, and, more especially, moral reforms are needed?” In other words, why not attack the cause and not the effects?

In talking thus my cafe acquaintance showed himself to be suffering from a malady almost universal in France: inability to realize that the state is merely the sum total of the nation’s individuals. The French are singularly lacking in team spirit. It is as individuals that they excel.

It must be remembered that the Frenchman has a fundamental objection to direct taxation because it attacks his earnings and through them his savings. He has always been accustomed to indirect taxation, which he considers is much more equitable because it touches only his spending and leaves his savings intact. He is apt to regard direct taxation, with the consequent divulging of his income, as a breach of the Rights of Man. Moreover, he is still smarting under the blow inflicted on him by the recent withdrawal of the 5000-franc bank notes which forced him to divulge his real income in order to state how he had acquired the notes.

His aversion to controls is far easier to understand when the circumstances of his life from 1940 to 1944 are remembered. For those four years he was either under the direct occupation of the enemy or subject to a government under the dominion of Germany. Controls in both cases meant oppression, and to evade them was a patriotic duty. Their continuation long after the departure of the oppressor is very irksome, especially as they are accompanied by administrative complications of the most exasperating kind.

4

REFORMS, which all Frenchmen will agree in theory are a necessity long overdue, are the thorniest problem of all. Constitutions — France has had ten since 1791 — have not the sanctity they possess in America, nor are they taken for granted as in Britain. Indeed, were it possible to dispense with a constitution altogether, the French would, I think, be secretly delighted. As it is, they realize that their present system is at least as faulty as its nine predecessors, but they are much divided on the extent and direction of its amendment. Most would, I think, agree that some change in the electoral system is essential.

In the first general election after the Liberation, proportional representation was used. The voters were given a list of candidates arranged according to their political parties and were not allowed to strike out an individual’s name, but only to indicate the party which they wished to see elected. The surplus votes in each constituency were disposed of by a complicated system of computation understood by only a few electors. Its net result, however, was to favor the Communists. While the Communists naturally desire the continuation of this system, other parties, especially those of the Center and the Right, desire the restoration of the nominative list system which prevailed in the Third Republic, and the extreme Right prefers the British system with a single vote.

Almost every Frenchman feels that the real cause of the present stagnation and corruption in politics is due to the multiplicity of political parties. He would like to see them reduced to two, or at the most to three, as in Britain. The political parties, he thinks, should be limited to pro-Communist and anti-Communist since these are the main divisions of opinion. How this is to be achieved, however, he finds it very hard to say, and many content themselves by crying out for a leader, un type comme Roosevelt ou Churchill, but not, save among his most fanatical supporters, un type comme de Gaulle.

Strange though it may seem to Americans, there is an undoubted tendency, especially in the French middle classes, to sigh for a constitutional monarchy; for this, they maintain, is the only way to achieve stability and continuity in political life. Every ministerial crisis — there have been eleven since the Liberation — sends more and more voters into that camp; but their difficulty — and it is a very formidable one — is to find a suitable monarch. The present constitution goes only a little way towards reducing the number of ministerial crises, and it stops short of giving the Premier the power to recommend a dissolution of the Chamber if his government be overthrown.

This analysis of French ills makes somber reading, but it is useless to blink facts. France is sick; the disease is not hard to diagnose but the remedy is illusive. Certainly the European Recovery Plan has given the French new heart and has prevented, at least for the moment, the complete collapse of the franc. These, however, are not very positive achievements.

The French certainly possess something against the Communist promises, but prosperity, even a reasonable standard of living, seems as far away as ever. For example, the cause of the recent French coal strike was economic, not political; and until all children in French towns can be assured of even a modest allowance of milk, a commodity which is to be found in abundance throughout the countryside, the benefits of outside help are more apparent than real.

There are Frenchmen who with true Gallic logic express astonishment at the behavior of America in giving aid at all. Why give credit, they say, to a customer who is on the verge of bankruptcy through his own fault? Why not insist on internal reforms, a balanced budget, a reasonably honest administration? It may be that a threat of this kind would administer the necessary “protein shock” and restore to the patient faculties which his own excesses have temporarily paralyzed. But it is a drastic cure, for the French are a proud as well as an intelligent people, and they know well enough that even we in Britain, on short commons though we are and depending for so much on the generous understanding of America, would go to great lengths to preserve France from disintegration. A fortiori, America will do so.

And would it, taking the long view, be a poor investment? I do not think so. The present state of France may be bad, but her fundamental state is good. She may be suffering from divided counsels, from corrupt politicians, from warring factions; but she still has a countryside unequaled in fertility in Europe and a population at heart farmers. Her crisis is one of distribution rather than of production. She has a larger number of cattle in 1949 than she had in 1939; the farm laborer is better off now than he was then, and the farm hand’s labor is the basis of both recovery and prosperity. A very small adjustment will turn the scale.

France has been in as bad a plight before and has survived to become strong and powerful again. She has done so because of the love of thrift and the will to work inherent in the tillers of her soil.