Young Man for a Crisis

Half a million Parisians, valises in hand, jostled aboard 257 special trains to leave the capital for the biggest Whitsun weekend in history. Newspaper headlines, which intrigued but did not deter the holiday-goers, reported new macabre events in Algeria--and the bustling efforts of politicians to find France a new Premier.

Among the politicians themselves, in France's third week without a government, there emerged at last a desire to end the crisis. Politicians of the left and center, bickering among themselves, became aware of a common peril. By delaying the formation of a government, anti-European groups in the Assembly, ranging from Gaullists through tax-dodging Poujadists to Communists, hoped to postpone the scheduled June 14 ratification of the Common Market and Euratom treaties.

As the week began Pierre Pflimlin, member of the M.R.P. Catholic center party and a good European, had tried to form a Cabinet devoted to lacing France into a "financial corset" of austerity. Conservative Independent Paul Reynaud told him: "Your program is tragically insufficient. I would even say it is not serious." The Conservatives would just as soon delay until a new election was forced, scenting that they might pick up some of the 37 seats now held by the discredited Poujadists. The Socialists, whose votes Pflimlin next solicited, were not anxious to face their electoral supporters at this month's party congress as supporters of a Catholic Premier. "Just answer yes or no," said Pflimlin. The Socialists answered: no.

Waiting Man. Declining President Coty's invitation to try again, outgoing Socialist Premier Guy Mollet instead recommended Radical Socialist Rene Billeres, who had been Education Minister in Mollet's recently defeated government. Billeres backed away ("I didn't consider myself qualified"), but he had a candidate in mind: fellow Radical Socialist Maurice Bourges-Maunoury. 42. the Defense Minister in Mollet's government. Thus, without seeming to promote a former minister who was unpopular in Socialist ranks on account of his aggressive Algerian policy, Mollet obliquely named his man. It was the signal that ambitious Bourges-Maunoury had been waiting for. Said he, after 45 minutes with President Coty: "The nation needs a government. Being in Defense, I know why."

Bourges-Maunoury had first to win approval of his own deeply divided Radical Socialist Party, among whom are such antagonists as Pierre Mendes-France and such influential though relatively unknown anti-Europeans as diminutive Newspaper Owner Jean Baylet, whose Depeche du Midi circulates its narrow message throughout France's poorer South. Radicals questioned Bourges sharply about his plans, finally voted 44 to 10 that he take his first step. Muttered a Radical Deputy: "That doesn't mean we've approved him yet as Premier."

The next move came from the Socialists. The hundred Socialist Deputies had taken a pledge: they would serve only under a Socialist Premier. Last week, in a complete about-face, they said they would take part in a government formed by Radical Socialist Bourges-Maunoury. The surprise decision gave Bourges a better-than-even chance of forming a government.

Strong Man. Bourges-Maunoury is the son of a distinguished Norman family and a graduate of the famed Ecole Polytechnique. He served France well during World War II, first as an artillery officer, then as a resistance fighter parachuted into France from Britain. During the invasion of Normandy he was dropped behind the German lines to organize sabotage, was severely wounded, ended the war with the rank of colonel and a chestful of medals, including the Compaction de la Liberation (held by only 600 living Frenchmen). A Deputy since 1946. he has served in a dozen Cabinets, holding such portfolios as Finance. Interior and Defense. A strong pro-European who quit the Mendes-France Cabinet in 1954 after the defeat of EDC, he has been fighting Mendes-France ever since within the Radical Socialist Party. The chief architect of Suez intervention, he is 100% behind the muscular Algerian policy.

The test for Bourges-Maunoury wfas his ability to form a Cabinet. Almost immediately he ran into trouble with the Catholic M.R.P., which declared it would not participate in his government but might be persuaded if the Foreign Ministry were given either to Pflimlin or that old Quai d'Orsay veteran and Catholic, Robert Schuman. If he made it, Bourges would be the youngest Premier of France in the 2Oth century.

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