FRANCE: A Question of Confidence

By majority vote, members of the French Assembly last week declared France an international incompetent. They scorned the most elaborate reassurances ever offered any nation. They rejected controls on their old enemy painstakingly contrived at their own insistence by their best friends. Driven largely by personal malice and domestic intrigues, they gravely damaged any hope of a united Europe, flung back the proffered hand of friendship from their ancient foe, and jeopardized their own safety. Their decision—if it stood—left France in the position of a ward, for other nations to protect and to defend. And even if the Assembly reversed itself this week in response to the world's shocked reaction, the memory of its first performance would remain.

Frenchmen call the National Assembly building "The House Without Windows." Inside its sooty, neo-Grecian walls last week, it was as if the outside events of the past three months had never happened.

Speaker after speaker arose to voice the old fears and complaints that they had voiced four, three, two years ago—oblivious to all the new concessions (British troops, Saar settlement) made just for them. In the end, the French Assembly proved again that it is an assemblage of negatives. Men who, by their dedication to EDC, had shown themselves ready to accept German rearmament, now joined the 100 Communists in voting it down.

The Old Cries. As the debate began, Georges Bidault and his Catholic M.R.P., professed friends of a united Europe, bided their time. "Don't get yourself worked up," the M.R.P.'s Francois de Menthon mocked Premier Mendes-France. "We've already decided to deal with you later." They have never forgiven him his share in the defeat of their pet EDC.

Even committees which reported favor ably on the Paris accords loaded their approvals with reservations, misgivings and conditions. No voice was lifted in praise or thankfulness that France, by the initiative of Britain's Anthony Eden, the prodding of the U.S.'s John Foster Dulles, and the shrewdness of Mendes-France, had been saved from isolation.

"Under the pretext of Atlantic solidarity, they are asking France to take precautions against the Soviet danger before taking precautions against the German danger," cried rightist General Adolphe Aumeran. "Without our agreement Amer ica will not dare rearm Germany." Insisted Gaullist Jacques Soustelle: "Every effort to get a modus vivendi with the East must be sought first. Logic dictates it . . . an alliance with Russia is a geopolitical must for France." Complained old Paul Reynaud, the man who was Premier in 1940 when France fell: "The Paris accords give the political hegemony to England and the military hegemony to Germany." Doddering old Edouard Herriot summarized for the fearful. "I refuse to accord [the Germans] either my sympathy or friendship," Herriot complained in his best emotional quaver. "The U.S. de serves that we make sacrifices for it. But France cannot sacrifice her conscience . . .

She must be faithful to the memory of Frenchmen who died under German blows." The Chamber boomed applause.