The Thirteenth Ballot

As the voting for a President of France dragged on at Versailles, ballot after ballot, the mood of the French press and public grew darker with rage and indignation. In Lyon, citizens hung up a street banner reading: THE CONGRESS OF VERSAILLES IS A MOCKERY. FRENCHMEN OF ALL OPINIONS, SHOW DISAPPROVAL BY PUTTING YOUR FLAGS AT HALF-MAST. What had begun as a "glorious uncertainty" (in the words of mercurial Foreign Minister Georges Bidault) had degenerated into an inglorious ordeal. Although the presidency is supposed to be above politics, it was partisan politics that blocked a choice for so long.

Premier Joseph Laniel, who had led most of the way and was at one point a hair's breadth from victory, saw that he could not win. He approved three other candidates, all from his own conservative Independent Republican Party. Of these, the one who proved most acceptable was a 71-year-old Senator named Rene Coty. On the eleventh ballot, Coty had 71 votes; on the twelfth, 431; on the 13th, he had 477--more than enough to win. Sad and tired, Loser Laniel congratulated him.

Winner Coty is unknown outside France, little known in France except to his parliamentary colleagues and an enigma to everyone for his views--whatever they are --on the liveliest topic of all, EDC. He is not a nonentity; he is, in fact, a case study in the solid bourgeois qualities that many Frenchmen want in their President. He may, just possibly, do very well in the job. Born of solid Norman stock (he is no kin to the late Perfumer Franc,ois Coty, who was really a Corsican named Spoturno), Rene Coty hung out his shingle as a lawyer in 1905, enlisted as a private in World War I and won a Croix de guerre, was first elected to the Parliament's lower house in 1923. Later, as a Senator, he had time for a comfortable law practice in Paris, specializing in bankruptcy cases, and became known as the "amiable liquidator." He believes that the French political system is more to blame than the men who try to run it, and once remarked: "It's a pity to shoot the pianist when the piano is out of tune." Socialist Vincent Auriol, the outgoing President, had hardly been better known when he was elected seven years ago, but he has been, by common consent, an excellent President.

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