FRANCE: The Art of Sinking

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From France's ornately somber National Assembly building one day last week emerged one of the world's least known and (at the moment) most important politicians. He was huddled in a black overcoat and brown woolen muffler, as if trying to withdraw into himself before the winds of winter and discontent that wailed about him. His black Homburg, tipped far over his pale blue eyes, almost scraped his nose, perhaps the most remarkable French nose since Cyrano de Bergerac's—a long, melancholy nose whose moody descent ended in a surprising and somewhat rakish twist, thus expressing both resignation and defiance to the world's all-embracing sadness.

"Do you feel happy?" asked one of the acquaintances who surrounded him in a solicitous cluster.

Premier of France Robert Schuman, who had just gone through an Assembly session which might or might not result in the fall of his Cabinet, smiled. "As usual," he said. "It seems they are giving me three weeks to find you a cheap steak."

Deadline in March. Robert Schuman's way of summing up the situation, at the level of the deliberate commonplace, made his government's crisis sound almost trivial. But Frenchmen knew what he meant. And they knew that if Schuman failed in his efforts to halt rising prices, and his coalition government fell, the situation might be beyond the power of any new coalition to solve. That would almost certainly mean an early showdown between the two challenging opposites in France today—Charles de Gaulle's super-party, Rassemblement du Peuple Français, and the Communists. The end of Schuman might mean the end of parliamentary rule as France had known it.

France's National Economic Council (an advisory body that usually echoes the nation's mood) had told the Premier simply: "You have until March 15, at the very latest, to lower prices 10%." Beyond that date, no labor union could promise to hold down the workers' dissatisfaction. In fact, the Communist-led C.G.T. (biggest federation of French unions) was unwilling to wait that long. The Communists last week demanded immediate wage boosts which they knew the government could not grant.

The Gaullists (though Schuman has been careful not to antagonize them) also blew hard. Cried the Mayor of Paris, Charles de Gaulle's brother, Pierre, last week: the government had "already failed . . . and the succession will be ours."

Novelist André Malraux, De Gaulle's highbrow pressagent, rang a tocsin of his own: he predicted that Maurice Thorez' Communist legions would soon launch a major offensive which might lead to civil war by April 15. Other alarms came from a less intellectual but intensely French quarter. In Paris, 5,000 midinettes, shivering in thin coats, protested against their dismissals by Paris dress houses (which were suffering a slump despite the New Look). Cried clothing union leader Alice Brisset: "Hardy measures are needed!"