In Quest of Unity

Not the least of Charles de Gaulle's gifts to France is the unprecedented six years of political stability provided by his Fifth Republic. De Gaulle is hardly reluctant to remind his country of the fact, making frequent and scornful references to the "parties of yesteryear" and the "kaleidoscope of governments" that preceded him. It is all pretty galling to the traditionally splintered parties of French democracy, which feel certain that there must be more to politics than simply a perpetual majority for le grand Charles.

Only in unity can the Gaullist opposition ever regain real strength, and the man who best understands this fact is the Socialist mayor of Marseille, Gaston Defferre, the first prominent Frenchman to challenge De Gaulle in the presidential elections next December. With little to lose because he stands so little chance of winning, Defferre last week was engaged in a chancy but possibly historic effort to bring together in a grand federation the Socialists and the center-left parties of France--most notably the Christian Democrats of the Mouvement Republican Populaire (M.R.P.).

Equal Disdain. Defferre faced formidable obstacles, both within his party and among the potential federation partners. France's anticlerical Socialists have always distrusted the Christian Democrats, in the past have sided instinctively with the Communists when it came to a choice between Reds and bourgeoisie. For their part, the M.R.P. and the centrists, recalling the prewar Popular Front, have looked with equal disdain on the Socialists.

Defferre himself disavows the Reds, and so got a more sympathetic hearing from the center parties when he first approached them about a possible federation last month. What is more, M.R.P. leaders faced a growing realization among their followers that if they did not achieve some kind of unity, the Gaullist juggernaut might roll on forever. After weeks of negotiation, Defferre won cautious agreement on a charter of federation, and last week he took his case to his own party, 315 of whose delegates gathered in the Salle des Fetes of the working-class Parisian suburb of Clichy. It turned out to be a battle royal across the red-topped tables. Old Line Socialist Guy Mollet, the party's boss for 19 years, and other party veterans accused Defferre of trying to put "new wine into old bottles" and seeking "adventure and chimeras." Replied Defferre "Since the Liberation we have lest half our voters and three-quarters of our active members. Let us not allow this chance to pass."

Private Negotiation. The chance probably would have passed but for one thing: Defferre's implicit threat to withdraw as a presidential candidate unless he got his way. To nearly everyone's surprise, the delegates hammered out an all-night compromise. It gave Defferre the go-ahead to negotiate with the M.R.P., provided that the federation charter propose a government takeover of private--including church --schools, and express the hope of some day "reintegrating" the Communist Party into French political life.

Then it was the M.R.P.'s turn to be surprised. The Christian Democrats had frankly not expected Defferre to win in Clichy, and seized on Defferre's concessions on the church schools and the Communists as completely unacceptable for any federation in which they would participate. Undismayed, Defferre at week's end continued to negotiate privately with the centrists in the hope of finding a compromise that would reduce the factionalism that has so long debilitated French politics--and would provide at least the beginnings of meaningful opposition to the smothering dominance of the Gaullists.

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