Flood, Fret & Tears

The President of France, the usually equable Vincent Auriol, was almost in tears. "Messieurs, les Ambassadeurs," he cried, before a French audience gathered last week for the opening of the Rhone Valley's Donzere-Mondragon dam, built with the help of $33 million from the U.S. Addressing himself directly to the assembled foreign diplomatic corps, which included the U.S.'s James C. Dunn, Auriol launched into an emotional refutation of recent U.S. criticism of France.

He was vexed three times over at the U.S. for: i) voting to let Arab grievances against French colonial rule in North Africa be aired in the U.N.; 2) cutting 20% of 1953 military aid to France: "Without doubt the Marshall Plan helped us, and we have often cited the benefits with gratitude [the Rhone dam was one], but unfortunately defense of freedom in Indo-China has already cost us just about double what we have received . . ."; 3) ignoring France's objections to German rearmament: "Although we have no hatred for those who made us suffer so much, and we desire to forget their cruelties if they agree not to forget them, certain apologies for their discipline and their will to power, in comparison with an alleged carelessness on the French side, hurt us profoundly. It is as if the aggressor merited more encouragement than the victim."

Auriol's tears, trickling into the muddy current of French opinion, were one of a number of streams which together seemed last week to be washing at the foundation of European unity against Communist aggression. Foremost were Speaker Edouard Herriot's declared opposition to the European Defense Community and Premier Antoine Pinay's tacit approval of Herriot's position (he knew what Herriot was going to say and did nothing to change it). After all, the whole idea of EDC was a cumbersome attempt to quiet French fears of German rearmament; now it looked as if France might be trying to get out.

It was the moment to close the floodgates, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman did just that. Schuman's party, the M.R.P., threatened to withdraw from the government unless immediate consideration was given to ratifying EDC. Premier Pinay, who needs Herriot's party in his coalition but also cannot carry on without the M.R.P.'s 100 votes, promised that ratification of EDC would be debated in the Assembly in November.

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