FRANCE: First Blush

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The day was balmy, fair and germinal—a day appropriate for dalliance, or at worst for relaxation. Therefore, the practical citizens of France bustled forth in unusual numbers to elect members of the Chamber of Deputies.

When votes were counted, last week, it was seen at first blush that not a single Communist had been returned and that the country had swung toward supporters of the Sacred Union Cabinet of Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré, savior of the Franc. The second blush would come seven days later, when Frenchmen will vote again in those constituencies where no candidate obtained a majority last week.

The chief sensation of the polling centred around War Minister Paul Painleve, who has twice been ousted from the Prime Ministry since the last election and was thought last week to be in danger of losing his seat as a Deputy. In the nick of time there arrived to bolster up his candidacy the two least likely persons imaginable: Dieudonné Costes and Joseph Lebrix, famed 'round-the-world aviators (TIME, April 23).

While all Paris hoarsed a welcome, Costes and Lebrix flew in from Marseilles on the last lap of their journey. Heroes, they revealed a fact which seemed scandalous. They declared that the French government had hindered their flight in several instances by intimating through French consuls that they ought not to continue their hazardous program. The only effective aid vouchsafed to them by the State came, they said, indirectly through War Minister Paul Painleve.

Shortly, Heroes Costes and Lebrix proceeded to thank M. Painleve by going down into his constituency and electioneering for him. In vain they were charged by his opponents with debasing, if not prostituting, their heroism to politics. True heroes, they stuck to their electioneering. Further, they revealed that on the last stages of their flight they were so reduced in funds that they skimped on food in order to buy gasoline, and hastened home in order to avoid begging for meals.

Paradoxically, not even this last and touching story availed to elect Paul Painleve last week, though he will have another chance at the forthcoming second poll. The fact that the enormous number of 3,712 candidates were seeking election to the scant 612 seats in the Chamber meant inevitably that many strong candidates failed to poll a majority. Among these was famed Louis Lucheur, Finance Minister in 1925, and "the richest man in France."

Among candidates safely returned to the Chamber are six members of the Sacred Union Cabinet: Foreign Minister Aristide

Briand, Minister of Public Instruction Edouard Herriot, Minister of Marine Georges Leygues, Minister of Public Works André Tardieu, Minister of Commerce Maurice Bokanowksi, and Minister of Pensions Louis Marin.

Unique was the electioneering of Candidate Georges Claude, a well known chemist. He ignored politics completely, and lectured to his constituents in crisp, entertaining style on scientific subjects. Intrigued, the ballot-casters gave him a thumping majority.