The Horses Are Thinner

Nobel Prizewinner Francois Mauriac, the Roman Catholic novelist, who is much preoccupied with sin, delivered himself last week of a pessimistic commentary on French politics. "We must conclude," he wrote on the front page of Le Figaro, "that the French people are able to secrete only a certain species of parliamentarianism, and that their bad habits are closely linked with their character. The saying that character is destiny applies to peoples as well as to individuals.

"It is no use reproaching man for being what he is and what he has always been. ... No, there is nothing to get indignant about against anybody; neither against businessmen for whom profit is the big thing, nor against politicians who also have a business which they must lead to success . . . their re-election . . . Institutions do not change because men do not change. The day after the greatest catastrophe in our history [the fall of France], we had lost sight of this truth; the clean sweep gave us the illusion that everything would be rebuilt anew. I who have never placed hope in politics trembled with hope in that moment. And here we are in the same ruts we were in 13 years ago; the coach rattles more, the horses are thinner and the flies are fiercer--that's the only difference."

Since they disagree on almost everything else, many Frenchmen disagreed with M. Mauriac's dour outlook. What was more striking in France last week, however, was that more & more Frenchmen were beginning to agree on one of the major causes of their chronic parliamentary crises. The cause: the constitution of the Fourth Republic, which came into force in 1946 and since has spawned 15 consecutive governments ranging in health from sickly to stillborn. So long as the constitution remains unchanged, Frenchmen are beginning to realize, premiers and cabinets are bound to come & go with distressing frequency.

The constitution's basic fault is that the National Assembly--comprising 627 deputies from a dozen parties--is entrusted with complete powers for governing France, but with almost none of the responsibility. All a premier can do when the Assembly votes against him is to quit. He has no veto power to ward off bad parliamentary acts. When a majority defeats him on a vote of confidence, he does not in practice have the powers to dissolve the Assembly, thus forcing the members to risk their own seats at an election. If he did have, the National Assembly might not be in such fickle haste to seat and unseat premiers.

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