World: ONCE MORE THE MYSTIQUE

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CHARLES DE GAULLE has always laid claim to an extraordinary, almost mystical empathy with the French people. As France lay gripped by the worst economic paralysis in its peacetime history and cries for his resignation echoed in the streets of every major French city and town, that claim seemed destined, along with his once-proud Fifth Republic, for the dustbin of history. But last week, summoning all his genius for leadership, De Gaulle once more commanded the French people to heed his will for France. Astonishingly, once again they listened.

In five tumultuous days, France passed from the brink of civil war to an almost universal feeling of relief that the worst of the crisis seemed to be over. Reviled by France's students and rejected by its workers, De Gaulle saw his government crumbling beneath him, Paris hostile and ready to explode, and opposition politicians closing ranks to cut him down. A lesser man might have quit; so serious was the situation that De Gaulle in fact considered it. But like his countrymen at the Marne 54 years before, he decided to stand his ground and fight. France responded, and by sheer force of will—and with some help from the French army—De Gaulle triumphed in perhaps the greatest crisis in his long service to France.

The week began on a hopeful note that quickly turned ominous. Premier Georges Pompidou and union leaders, after all-night negotiations, agreed early Monday morning to huge and highly inflationary wage settlements in order to end the strike that had idled half of France's 16 million-man industrial work force. Then, at plant after plant, the workers rejected the settlements and called for creation of a popular-front government of Socialists and Communists. It was a shattering blow to De Gaulle. He had been operating on the assumption that he could buy off the workers, whose demands until then had been purely economic, and then cope with the rebellious students who had started the crisis in the first place. With the non from the workers, the faltering Gaullist government lost all momentum. Plainly confused and dispirited, Ministers trekked in and out of the Elysee; De Gaulle and Pompidou seemed to be at the mercy of events that they could no longer control.

Sensing that the moment had come to strike, Fran?ois Mitterrand, the leader of the non-Communist left, next day made an open bid for power. Summoning the press to a gilded salon in the Hotel Continental, he called for the establishment of a provisional government of the left to prepare for the election of a President to replace De Gaulle. He suggested former Premier Pierre Mendès-France be leader of the provisional regime—a proposal to which Mendès-France quickly agreedèand announced his own intention to run for the presidency in the elections. Other politicians took up the cry for the formation of "a government of public salvation." The Communists, who until then had refrained from making any overt attempt to replace De Gaulle, whose foreign policy has Moscow's hearty approval, began dickering with Mitterrand for portfolios in his cabinet.