New Cabinet

"The Republic is in danger!" When eight months ago (TIME, June 12) the then Premier Daladier first raised that cry in the Senate it seemed no more than a useful political trick to whip Senators into line. Last week every Frenchman realized that the Republic was in danger, and to pull it out Edouard Daladier was made Premier of France again.

For the second week ferocious rioting over L'Affaire Stavisky appalled Paris. With their horsehair plumes nodding and polished helmets glittering, mounted patrols of the Garde Republicaine moved slowly up & down the boulevards. Citizens screamed "Down with the Stavisky Cabinet!"--though in fact M. Camille Chautemps was Premier and no one charged him personally with having anything to do with the $30,000,000 pawnshop bond swindle of "Handsome Alex" Stavisky who died with a bullet through his brain at Chamonix when his rascality and bribery of Deputies and officials were unmasked (TIME, Jan. 15, et seq.).

Police worked like beavers wiring down iron gratings, removing fences from tree trunks, piles of paving blocks and other impromptu weapons, and warning cafe proprietors to clear their terraces of siphons and heavy saucers. A dozen times angry crowds, led by Royalists, were beaten back by police reserves. Meanwhile the first duel resulting from Stavisky revelations was fought by Deputy Andre Hesse and Lawyer Joseph Beneix in the empty stadium of the Parc des Princes which can seat 20,000. The duelists missed each other twice and stalked furiously from the field. When dapper Prefect of Police Jean Chiappe privately warned Premier Chautemps that he could no longer guarantee the safety of Cabinet members, the Chautemps Cabinet resigned, rioting stopped.

When sad-eyed President Albert Lebrun appealed to gay and popular former President Gaston ("Gastounet") Doumergue to emerge from retirement and come forward as a "nonpolitical" Premier, he declined, pleading his age (70). Chunky, canny Edouard Herriot was next best choice, but though untouched by the Stavisky scandal himself, he is president of the Radical Socialist Party which has been accused of accepting campaign contributions from Swindler Stavisky. Edouard Daladier therefore got the call, accepted. Though unwilling to make them, Gaston Doumergue suggested that drastic constitutional changes must be made in French Parliamentary practice.

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