First Clash

A minor episode in French politics was big news for Europe last week: for the first time General Charles de Gaulle and the French Communist Party clashed openly. Strengthened by recognition, the French Government decreed that the Communist-led Patriotic Militia (Milice Patriotique) must surrender its arms. The Patriotic Militia is a group of irregular home guards not connected with the F.F.I. A small group before liberation, the militia has grown rapidly since then.

Five days later the Political Bureau* of the French Communist Party refused to accept the order, but the Cabinet's two Communists held on to their jobs.

Said the Politburo's statement: "The Communist Party can in no way be associated with decisions aimed at disarming the people in the face of a Hitlerian fifth column which is left intact and powerfully armed. ... All Communists will act in the sense indicated by the Bureau, and they will do everything in their power to widen and consolidate the union of the French resistance movement."

Then the Politburo blamed De Gaulle for the disarming decree.

Pardoned and Shot. Leftist resistance to General de Gaulle has been growing in the provinces. At Maubeuge a fortnight ago the Francs-Tireurs Partisans, the Communist-influenced section of the F.F.I., sentenced five collaborationists to death. General de Gaulle pardoned two of them. The F.T.P. took these two out and shot them anyway. At Toulouse, when General de Gaulle refused to receive the resistance leaders, the rank & file tried to arrest him.

But De Gaulle also received new support. France au Combat, a rightist resistance group, which was strongest in the south of France, announced that it was solidly behind the Government. It planned to expand its organization throughout Paris and the provinces, to publish a daily and a weekly paper, to oppose lynchings and private executions of the kind carried out by the Patriotic Militia. Its mottoes: "De Gaulle our President"; "De Gaulle and Order." Most of the Gaullist Cabinet members were reported to have joined the France au Combat group.

A Gaullist once explained De Gaulle's agreement with the Communists: until France was liberated, they would work together; after that all bets would be off. It began to look as if the bets were off.

*In all Communist parties, the Political Bureau (Politburo) formulates party policy.

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