Seven Minus Four

As Parliament convened last week after the holidays, greying Marcel Cachin, Communist Senator, decided not to risk going to Paris, lay snug at his villa in Brittany, and his only other Communist colleague also stayed home. Barrel-chested, leather-lunged Maurice Thorez, French Communist Party leader, had to keep quiet--he was A.W.O.L. from the Army. In famed Sante Prison sat many of the 72 French Communist Deputies, arrested after the Party was outlawed (TIME, Oct. 23), one by one on charges of this or that "illegal activity." But seven Communist Deputies who were serving in the Army (where their activities were considered legal) were on hand last week when the Chamber opened.

The Chamber was called to order, as custom provides, by its most aged member, M. Georges Levy-Alphandery, 78. While the Deputies listened to his quavering and cackling the seven Reds took their seats unobtrusively. When old Levy-Alphandery asked the Chamber to rise "in homage to the armed forces of France," three rose but four kept their seats. "Throw them out!" shouted the Deputies.

"I have no authority to expel anyone," quavered old Levy-Alphandery. At that the Socialists, former allies of the Communists in the United Front--next to whom they sit at the Chamber's left--grabbed the four Reds who would not stand and tossed them out.

The Chamber then proceeded to re-elect its regular President (Speaker), popular Edouard Herriot. Once the Soviet Union's most potent friend in France, Speaker Herriot last week denounced Moscow as "a regime seeking to crush the weak," called for maximum French aid to the Finns, brought the Deputies to their feet shouting, "Long live Finland!" The last three Reds said nothing, but it did not appear that they could stay, even if meek. Vice Premier Camille Chautemps introduced a bill to expel every last Red in France from office -- from Chamber, Senate, from national, provincial and municipal offices.

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