The Over-Beautiful Bride

In Paris last week 74-year-old Edouard Daladier, last survivor of the "men of Munich," bitterly ended his 40-year career in French politics. Rather than face certain defeat, Radical Socialist Daladier resigned as mayor of Avignon, abandoned his candidacy for a seat in the Fifth Republic's first National Assembly. "In all France." he snapped, "a new right wing, aggressive and hidebound, triumphs by covering itself with the name and prestige of General de Gaulle."

At week's end, trooping to the polls for the second, runoff round of National Assembly elections, French voters confirmed this sour tribute to the power of the Gaullist label. Clinging to De Gaulle's coattails, the hastily organized U.N.R. (Union for the New Republic) emerged as France's biggest party (26.5% of the vote), won half again as many Assembly seats (187) as any other party. Counting the conservative Independents (120) and the 67 Deputies from Algeria, more than two-thirds the members of the new Assembly were elected on tickets appealing essentially to a right-wing nationalism.

In this tidal wave, many a figure from the past was swept away. The Socialists, hitherto France's biggest non-Communist party, lost a staggering 55 seats (from 95 down to 40). Among defeated Socialists were ex-Premier Paul Ramadier, Christian Pineau, Robert Lacoste and Jules Moch. The Radical Party, a dominant force in French politics since 1875, saw four of its ex-Premiers (Pierre Mendes-France, Daladier, Edgar Faure and Maurice Bourges-Maunoury) go down to defeat. Also consigned to political oblivion: rabble-rousing near-fascist Pierre Poujade.

Hardest hit of all were the Communists, who lost more than 2,000,000 of the 5,500,000 votes they got in 1956. Their defeat was furthered by adroit gerrymandering and the coalitions that non-Communist parties formed against strong Communist candidates. Party Boss Maurice Thorez squeaked back into the Assembly, but his wife, Jeanette Vermeersch, was beaten by a Gaullist in one of Paris' "reddest" districts; so, too, was tubby Jacques Duclos, the party's No. 2 man and parliamentary leader. Of the 150 seats won in 1956, the Communists held on to only ten. This hardly reflected their true voting strength as France's second largest party, but then, the old system of proportional representation had given them seats beyond their strength.

The virtual elimination of the Communists from the National Assembly meant a welcome end to the Red log-jamming that has plagued every French Parliament since World War II. All the same, the makeup of the new Assembly prompted many a Frenchman to echo the question posed by Le Monde: "Is the bride too beautiful?"

What De Gaulle himself had hoped for was an Assembly dominated by the Socialists and center parties, whom he could count on to help him carry out a liberal policy in revolt-torn Algeria. And above all, he had been hopeful that the Moslem Deputies from Algeria would be men truly representative of Algerian opinion--men with whom he could negotiate an end to the war. Instead, he was confronted with a majority that included such "new men" as right-wing bullyboy Jean Baptiste Biaggi and Leon Delbecque, a prime mover in last May's military insurrection in Algiers. As for the Moslem Deputies in Algeria, they were an unimpressive collection of nonentities hand-picked by the French army for their ignorance, docility and "loyalty to France."

Avoiding the Obvious. The results of last week's vote made it almost a foregone conclusion that De Gaulle, once he has been elected President late next month, will feel obliged to pick his Premier from the new U.N.R. Guessing in Paris was that the general would bypass the obvious choice--aggressive, ambitious Information Minister Jacques Soustelle, known as a man of plots--in favor of Minister of Justice Michel Debre, 46. Forceful Lawyer Debre, the man chiefly responsible for drafting De Gaulle's constitution, is less controversial than Soustelle, played a less prominent role in the Algerian insurrection that brought down the Fourth Republic. But like Soustelle, Debre is a fire-eating nationalist who used to make angry speeches denouncing France's "slavish devotion to Washington," though he insists he is not anti-American.

If the Assembly that the voters had given him was too "Gaullist" for De Gaulle, he might yet be able to mold it to his taste. Portentous as it looks on paper, the U.N.R. is, in fact, an inchoate alliance of a dozen political groups, still has not even formulated a party program. And though its opponents call it rightist, the U.N.R. itself claims to be "left center," includes among its leaders left-trending Senator Edmond Michelet, 59, a close friend of De Gaulle who has publicly urged a negotiated peace in Algeria.

There was a chance, too, that the Moslem Deputies from Algeria might prove a surprise to their right-wing patrons. Hand-picked though they were, some of the Moslem candidates during the campaign showed unexpected glimmers of independence. (One of them, urged by his French sponsor to "speak up," astounded one and all by proposing himself as an emissary to the rebel F.L.N.) This week, for the fifth time since he became Premier last June, de Gaulle will fly down to Algeria. Presumably he wants to parley with the newly elected Moslem Deputies before the pols of Paris can get at them.

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