New Look for Government?

"We are faced with the Imperator of Roman decadence," cried Paris Editor Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. "We [will] no longer be in the republican tradition," mourned famed Historian Andre Siegfried. These were almost the only voices decisively raised last week when Premier Charles de Gaulle unveiled his proposed new constitution for France. De Gaulle submitted it to a 39-man Constitutional Consultative Committee, and, in a characteristic touch, gave them precisely 20 days to consider it.

His constitutional draft was strong medicine. Its fairly mild reception reflected the common recognition of the need for a strong cure, as well as the fact that half of France was on holiday. But overriding all else was the concern expressed even by Historian Siegfried that the alternative to De Gaulle might be a "civil war between a seditious threat and a Communist threat of a popular front."

For the possibility of a paratroop coup still haunts French politics. Said Consultative Committee Chairman, famed old Parliamentarian Paul Reynaud, 79, expressing the hope that the suggestions of his committee would help to get the new constitution passed, "for we know that its failure would reopen the crisis of May while depriving us of the only man who can resolve it."

Clipping Wings. If, as expected, it wins approval of the French electorate when submitted to a yes-or-no popular referendum Oct. 5, De Gaulle's constitution would give France a form of government unique in the Western world, a curious casserole of traditional French, British and U.S. institutions seasoned with just a soupc,on of Salazar's Portugal. Implicit in almost every clause of the draft version is a profound determination to clip the wings of the negative and vacillating National Assembly which, under the Fourth Republic, used its untrammeled power to make and smash 25 governments in twelve years. Under the projected Fifth Republic, the Assembly would meet for only 5 1/2 months a year v. the present seven, would be able to overturn a Premier only by means of a censure motion approved by an absolute majority. More crippling yet, the Assembly would have virtually no direct control over defense, basic economic policy or--apart from treaty ratification--over the conduct of foreign affairs. Any legislation which the government demanded as a matter of confidence would go into effect without a vote unless the Assembly passed a censure motion within three days.

As a final damper on the Assembly, the Fifth Republic would be ruled by a double-headed executive. Under the terms of the De Gaulle constitution, France would still have a Premier responsible to Parliament, but his ministers would have to resign their parliamentary seats. And over all would be a President elected for seven years, and with powers greater in some respects than those of the President of the U.S. He would be elected by the combined votes of Parliament, the members of the colonial assemblies, representatives of France's municipal councils, and other bodies, a grouping so weighted that a President from the left would be highly unlikely.

The President would name his own Premier and Cabinet, would have the power to dissolve Parliament at will, once it had served for a year or more. Most alarming of all to many French republicans was Article 14, which jurists call "the paragraph of necessity" and adversaries "the paragraph of dictatorship." It empowers the President to rule dictatorially in the event that France's institutions, independence, integrity or "international commitments are threatened in a grave and immediate way." The man who decides whether conditions are grave enough is the President himself.

Last Chance. Criticism, focused on Article 14, might lead to more safeguards, but for the moment at least, most Frenchmen seemed content to let le grand Charles have his way.

Around the Hotel Matignon, it was said that De Gaulle had resisted pressure from many of his Cabinet ministers to draw up an even more authoritarian constitution. Said the general himself: "If there is any republic left in this constitution, it's thanks to me." And he added, "We are the last chance for a representative regime in France."

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