FRANCE: No. II

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Fallen after five months in office, several stays of execution: Premier René Pleven's French coalition-of-the-center government. His was the eleventh French government (usually with the same ministers changing chairs) to fall during the lifetime of the Fourth French Republic.

The Socialists, who had supported the Pleven cabinet on most issues, deserted when the Premier asked the National Assembly to authorize economies designed to reduce the $400 million annual deficit of France's nationalized railway system. That licked the motion—and the government—by a whopping 98 votes.

Outlook: probably a month or more of a caretaker government, during which the same ministers (except the Premier and Minister of the Interior) will carry on their jobs as if nothing had happened, followed by formation of another cabinet, presumably with much the same faces.