FRANCE: The Big Three

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France's political "big three"—Communists, Socialists and Popular Republicans (M.R.P.)—entered the Fourth Republic. Latest returns for the newly elected Constituent Assembly indicated that the Communists controlled 162 seats, Socialists 154, and M.R.P. 138. In popular ballots the big three had run neck & neck: each polling about 4,500,000. The so-called Right had been reduced to 80 seats, about 2,000,000 popular votes. The wartime resistance movement was all but obliterated as a political entity. Frenchwomen, after casting their first national vote, held 31 Assembly seats, or 5% of the total.*

Three days after the election, Provisional President Charles de Gaulle summoned party leaders to consultation. His objective: a coalition cabinet, which will administer France, while the Assembly, beginning Nov. 6, drafts the new constitution. This will be the Assembly's primary job, and it has seven months to finish the task.

The M.R.P. was first to confer with the General. A newcomer, it had astonished its own leaders by its show of middle-class strength. Its leadership, typified by Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, was dominated by preliberation Gaullists. In its liberal though Catholic outlook it stood close to the General's views.

Now, through youthful (34), energetic Chairman Maurice Schumann, the M.R.P. declared its willingness to take part in a coalition government. But it laid down conditions: 1) General de Gaulle must be chief of the new government, 2) the new government must adopt a program of "economic democracy."

The Socialists, next to talk with De Gaulle, announced that they were ready to join hands with "all republicans." Condition: the coalition government must agree on "minimum" economic reforms.

The Communists, now France's most powerful party, were third in line. They also were ready—even anxious—to enter a coalition government. But they had an important, characteristic condition: the Communists must have cabinet "posts of an "importance reflecting the party's great victory at the polls." A spokesman explained that they wanted the key portfolios of Defense, Finance, Interior (police) and Information. General de Gaulle was not likely to meet this demand. The Communists were likely to settle for less. If they did not, the General might carry on with a Socialist-M.R.P. cabinet, leaving the Communists in powerful opposition. On foreign policy the Socialists and M.R.P. championed and Communists naturally opposed a western bloc. Socialists and M.R.P. differed over state aid for parochial schools—an important issue in Catholic France. But they agreed on the great fundamental: a program of middleway socialism. The Communists said that they agreed, too.