The Impotence of France

The leaders of France were packing their bags for a crucial trip to Washington when Chancellor Konrad Adenauer pushed the European Army treaty through the West German Bundestag. The way Paris saw it, the Chancellor could not have been more inconsiderate, nor his timing more inopportune. It was, to put it mildly, a diplomatic embarrassment.

Now, more than ever, their U.S. hosts would be expecting the visitors to bring with them this week some solid evidence that France, after two years of stalling on the program they themselves had conceived, is determined to create the European Army.

No Alternative Policy. At the head of the delegation was pipe-smoking French Premier Rene Mayer, blowing a few optimistic smoke rings. "I will speak in the U.S.," he told his countrymen, "in the name of a country which is ready to participate in the construction of Europe provided that her position as a world power be recognized." Mayer, who came to power chiefly by promising the Gaullists severe changes in the EDC treaty, had come round to strong support for it--subject to a few modifications, of course. "When the time comes," said he last week, "the French Parliament will accept its responsibilities. It is in favor of the treaty. It has no alternative policy."

Around Rene Mayer's chief companion on the trip to Washington, Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, the visibility was not so clear. Washington had small, agile Georges Bidault pegged as a clever man caught between sympathy for the European Army plan and his own strong desire to become President of France next year. He is maneuvering in the thickets of French politics for a formula which will not only squeeze EDC through the Assembly--a heroic task in itself--but will also get Georges Bidault the later political support of varied, often opposing political factions. Bidault joined Mayer last week in strong support of EDC--or did he? "The nation must accept the treaty," said he. But he promptly added: "[It] must, if necessary, be referred to the country." Perhaps the Foreign Minister was merely doing some more weaving through the thickets, but perhaps he was hinting of a national referendum, a new and surefire way to stall the treaty for many more months.

"The Essential Thing." The time for decision pressed on French politicians. Mayer's predecessor, Antoine Pinay, who had himself refused to submit EDC to the Assembly during his 9 1/2 months as Premier, last week came out for it, and even had a few words of criticism for those who oppose it. "These people who want more out of others while giving up less themselves," said he, "let them give us an effective formula . . . Never forget that while we may be the masters of timing in the organization of Europe, we are not masters of the timing in the organization of security. That for us is the essential thing."

All French politicians seemed painfully, even resentfully, aware that the U.S. expected France to ratify the compact it had initiated and initialed. They could think of all kinds of reasons why not to ratify: the plan was undesirably complex; why put Frenchmen side by side with German soldiers, etc.

Beneath these doubts and misgivings, beneath this floundering indecision, was the conviction that France still bears within itself the talents and brains of a great power. But France is hobbled by a governing structure that defeats an appeal to greatness, and a party system that protects an appeal to smallness. Even men capable of leading cannot lead under the system which places all the power--but none of the responsibility--in the National Assembly, and dissipates that power among a dozen squabbling factions. "The Parliament is the supreme example [of the confusion]," commented ex-Foreign Minister Robert Schuman last week. "It has the means of imposing its will on everything--provided that it has a will . . . But it is easier to get a majority to criticize than to define a policy."

Lucidity & Nothingness. Le Monde's influential political writer, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, took up where Schuman left off. "What is so mysterious about France," he wrote, "is its impotence. It is that lucidity is followed by nothing. If you listen to an old minister, he will explain to you with serenity what could have been done. If you have occasion to meet a man today in power, he will brilliantly depict what must be done. The ideas are seductive, the directions are clearly fixed, the plans are meticulous; France comprehends the universe. And then nothing, or nearly nothing, is produced."

"Why?" asked Servan-Schreiber. "The most distressing thing is not to understand why. Historic decadence is not a satisfying explanation, and in any case it is inadmissible ..." France's day-to-day existence, he suggested, is determined "by lower echelons, public and private ... the assistant chiefs of bureau and the secretaries of corporations . . . These men are probably honest and competent, but not for directing the destinies of the country ... It is neither their role nor their mandate. The sum of all these specialized interests does not constitute a community of interests . . . One after the other, the problems that we have to resolve, the choices which must be made, are abandoned to the events . The events take charge.

"None of this is painful. On the contrary, it is convenient ... It would be senseless to bewail this state of affairs. Only one thing counts: How can we get out of it? One thing alone is certain: if public opinion understood what goes on, it would react violently. Apathy is not in the nature of the country. It is the result of lies . . . Since March 1945 not a single minister has resigned because he is refused the means to pursue the policy which he believes necessary. Not a single spontaneous resignation in a France eaten away by lies and collusion--not a single one for eight years! . . .

"The French of today wish to find the real, actual, living cause of the impotence. It is not too late ... to transform the political atmosphere. If we do not voluntarily recognize reality, we will become responsible for a catastrophe."

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