Popular Premier

At last it looked as if poorly led France had found a helmsman. Nimble little Pierre Mendes-France emerged from near-obscurity to end the Indo-China war, kill off EDC and exact huge concessions from France's allies. Last week he demonstrated beyond all doubt that he is now the most popular man in France and its strongest Premier since the heyday of Charles de Gaulle.

Only four months ago he was an outsider, disliked as an intellectual and a heckler, attacked by bigots as a Jew and by fellow politicians for his unabashed ambition. Last week, a phenomenon of 47, he was able to:

P: Persuade the National Assembly, a sizable majority of which opposed Germany's rearmament, to vote 350 to 113 in favor of the principle of rearming West Germany and admitting it to NATO. P: Soften the big Socialist Party (105 Assembly seats) for an almost certain switch from hostile noncooperation to participation in the Mendes government. P: Win from fading Charles de Gaulle the promise that his followers will soon be freed to support Mendes and his program for France.

Voila, un Miracle! Mendes accomplished this with a mixture of nerve, showmanship and canny political maneuver. To win the "massive majority" he desired for the London agreement, he put Socialists in a position where they risked scrapping him and his economic program, which the Socialists favor, if they tried to scrap the London proposals. Mendes drove his point home by rushing through a 6.5% bonus for industrial workers and low-ranking bureaucrats, and by promising another raise next April--if his government is still in power. The Socialist leaders, he reasoned, would hardly dare bring down a government that promised to do so much for the constituents back home.

Mendes reasoned correctly. At an urgent conference, the Socialist rank and file overruled their wavering leader, Guy Mollet, and pledged all their party's 105 votes to the Premier. "Voila, un miracle!" huffed an anti-Mendes Deputy when he heard the news. "Since the government decided to increase wages ... it is assured a comfortable majority."

Mendes did not stop with the Assembly vote on the London agreement, but drove for a bigger prize: Socialist participation in his government. On the telephone he offered Guy Mollet four Cabinet posts in return for Socialist support. Asked Mollet: Who will select the ministers? Answered Mendes: "Moi." Soon it was common knowledge that Socialist support of the government was only a matter of time.

More than Expected. With his left flank so neatly reinforced, Mendes turned next to the right. A hint, a subtle suggestion, and General Charles de Gaulle, who once described the Mendes regime as a "mudhole." asked for an appointment with the Premier. Mendes was delighted, and after busily dodging newsmen, the two who have made the most impact on France since World War II met at the Hotel La Perouse, an old-fashioned hostelry on the right bank of the Seine.

It was De Gaulle who gave Mendes his first Cabinet appointment (as Minister of National Economy in the first De Gaulle government) and, despite their quarrels since, their go-minute conversation was friendly and productive. The general, who did most of the talking, confessed himself surprised at Mendes' accomplishments. "More than could have been expected," he allowed grudgingly. De Gaulle harked back to his favorite (and justified) theory that the constitution of the Fourth Republic makes the Premier a prisoner of the National Assembly. Until this "framework" is broken, the general saw no hope for truly stable government. But before the meeting was over, De Gaulle, the warring hero, gave Mendes, the new man of hope, a hint of even more support. Around the end of November, the general confided, he will publicly proclaim his full retirement from French political life. De Gaulle has retired before, but this time he promised Mendes that he will free the 70-odd Deputies who still remain loyal to him to vote for whom they please. By choosing to do this after showing his "loyalty" to Mendes, De Gaulle in effect would be urging their support of Mendes.

Radishes with Butter. Mendes was overjoyed. Before him lay the prospect that soon he might head the strongest and most effective coalition in the history of the Fourth Republic. His strongest single asset was his growing popularity among the most forgotten people in French politics: ordinary citizens. Opening a school here, laying a cornerstone there, Mendes was dramatizing his "New Deal" in glowing phrases. A sample: "The wind is rising, morning is here, we are at the dawn of a new France." With the French people aroused and behind him, he hopes to bend the quarreling politicians to his will.

That the politicians were already bending was demonstrated at week's end when Mendes, in his special train, barreled down to Marseilles to attend the 41st annual convention of his Radical Socialist Party. A party of seasoned individualists whose mixed-up politics have been likened to radishes ("Red on the outside, white inside, and surrounded with plenty of butter"), the Radicals were, as usual, quarreling. When Mendes appeared on the tribune, the tumultuous crowd of businessmen, lawyers and well-to-do farmers fell silent without a word of command.

Mendes' chief theme was hope. "Only four months ago," he said, "people spoke of France as the sick man of Europe. But . . . now we have the certainty of a great future for the Republic."

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