The Exact Middle

Pierre Mendes-France talked the language of action, used such expressions as "original," "daring," "the need for a psychological shock." "You must choose," was his challenge to the Assembly. His fellow Radical Socialist Edgar Faure talks the language of moderation and gradualism, speaks of "carom shots," and "economic billiards." "If you can't get over an obstacle, go around it," he likes to say. Last week the French Assembly chose to go around with Faure.

For three weeks, as French movie audiences cheered pictures of Mendes and booed the procession of Old Guard leaders to the presidential palace, France's ship of state had been in irons--sails thrashing, the crew in shouting confusion. Night after night, old President Rene Coty had climbed from his bed to confer with pouchy-eyed politicians, while ample Madame Coty padded about the palace kitchen in her silken peignoir, serving endless cups of coffee.

Faure was the fourth choice to form a government, a man whom the party leaders themselves finally agreed was the best hope. "He is the exact middle," explained Elder Statesman Paul Reynaud. Shrewdly, the Assembly's old cuties had calculated that Faure was young enough, dynamic enough, and leftist enough to cut the ground from under Mendes with the voters. "His dialogue is left, his politics right. This is a very useful arrangement," said one supporter.

The Juggler. But even Faure almost failed before he succeeded. His first move was to consult his old friend Mendes-France. Mendes had kept Faure on as Finance Minister after the fall of the Laniel "richman's government," until Mendes could turn his personal attention to reform of the creaking French economy. More than any man, Faure is credited with France's relative prosperity of the past year and a half. But even before Mendes' fall, there had been friction between Mendes and his more conservative Finance Minister. Now Mendes flatly refused him support unless Faure would "remake our old majority," i.e., get the support of the Socialists for a left-center coalition. Dutifully, Faure tried. But the Socialists, eager to campaign for higher wages in the 1956 elections without the embarrassment of having participated in a government that kept the lid on, refused him. Faure turned to the conservatives for his majority, and Mendes turned openly hostile.

Cynics call Faure "the juggler," and the Cabinet he presented was a masterpiece. Gone were the bright young men of Mendes' Cabinet. Replacing them were many of the old familiar faces of postwar France, carefully balanced off as Faure doled out the spoils to the bargainers. To soothe the conservatives, the foreign ministry went to Independent Antoine Pinay, a sturdy pro-European pledged to push through the Paris accords. But as his own ministerial lieutenant Faure appointed Gaullist Gaston Palewski, a leader of the opposition to the accords who has organized the effort to block implementation even after ratification. As a price for their hesitant support, the M.R.P. got four choice Cabinet posts, including Robert Schuman as Minister of Justice and Pierre Pflimlin, a political comer, as Minister of Finance. Faure pledged his government to carry through Mendes' proposed home rule for Tunisia, but appointed as Minister for Tunisian and Moroccan Affairs a dissident Gaullist who strongly opposes it. All of these appointments indicated an attempt to strike an "exact middle," which might in practice turn out to be a dead center.

Asking to be confirmed in office, Faure talked to patches of empty seats and small applause. Abroad, Faure's policy was Mendes' policy--quick ratification of the Paris accords for German rearmament, but a new effort immediately thereafter for talks with Russia. Domestically, he avoided Mendes' "psychological shock," promised a conservative program of increasing production, cutting prices, and raising wages slightly. On what one newspaper called "a wave of lassitude," the Assembly approved by a resounding 369 to 210, with only the Communists and Socialists opposed.

The Abstainer. In his speech Edgar Faure did not mention Mendes--the first time on record a Premier-designate had violated the tradition of praise for his predecessor. Mendes did not once join in the applause and he pointedly abstained on the vote. Later, when Mendes formally turned over the Premier's office to Faure, Mendes refused to be photographed in the traditional smiling handshake, ducked out of a side door, where he was cheered by 200 waiting supporters. Nonetheless, Edgar Faure was given a fair chance to survive a while: the Deputies who had come to hate Mendes had an interest in making Mendes' successor look good. With Mendes gone, many dedicated "Europeans" have abandoned their stubborn opposition to the Paris accords, are willing to support them unreservedly.

At week's end Mendes announced that he was leaving for a month's skiing and thinking, while Faure prepared to govern France by carom shot.

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