Reform by Decree

Sitting ramrod-erect at his ornate Louis XV desk in Elysee Palace, President Charles de Gaulle reaches out occasionally to snap on a loudspeaker dubbed le perroquet (the parrot) that permits him to listen to debate in the National Assembly. Lately the parrot has gone wild with a cacophony of shouting, desktop banging and name-calling that led in one embarrassing instance to a sword duel between two incensed Deputies. The sounds from the box have made painfully clear to De Gaulle that the mere plurality that Gaullists drew in the March parliamentary elections has transformed the comfortably rubber-stamping Assembly into one that talks back and can be recalcitrant.

Favorite Method. Charles de Gaulle wants none of that. He fears that urgent economic legislation about to be submitted to lawmakers could take months to squeeze through an unruly National Assembly, giving the opposition a continuous field day. Last week Premier Georges Pompidou told a hand-picked group of Deputies that the Assembly will be asked to approve government-by-decree for the next six months. Seeking extraordinary powers to rule temporarily by decree has long been a favorite method of French governments for stuffing unpopular measures down parliamentary throats, and De Gaulle himself has used it no less than seven times since he took power in 1958.

The reason that he has asked for the short cut this time is a general malaise in the French economy that affects both board rooms and sweatshops. It is accompanied by a slowdown of overall economic growth and by unemployment, which has recently increased by 20,000 to 370,000 in a country accustomed to virtually full employment. By July 1968, when tariff barriers between Common Market countries are brought down all the way, French industry will have to face increased competition, and it is believed ill equipped to hold its own. De Gaulle's bills aim at tightening up industry and encouraging mergers, also include profit-sharing provisions for workers. As important as these economic reforms is the Gaullist intent to force center groups sandwiched between the Gaullists and the left in the National Assembly either to make common cause with the Gaullists, or take the blame for defeating the government bill and thus risk new elections.

Ominous Sign. "Before, the majority was asked only to ratify; now it is asked to abdicate," said Jean Lecanuet, the head of the Centre Democrate Party and a leading center politician. He was expressing widespread bitterness at what many non-Gaullists consider a maneuver to counteract the larger-than-ever showing of a.nti-Gaullist sentiment at the polling booths two months ago. An ominous sign came by week's end when one of the general's faithful lieutenants, hulking Edgar Pisani, 48, Minister of Public Works and Housing and a Cabinet member since 1961, resigned in protest against the government's attempt to rule by decree. He was the first French Cabinet member in five years to quit.

Whatever the coming showdown in the Assembly may bring, another showdown is in the offing out in the streets. Both Communist-led and anti-Communist unions are threatening to hold anti-government demonstrations and strikes. Since the March elections, a series of strikes has swept France. Some 8,000 workers at France's largest shipyards have now been out for two months, and steelworkers in Lorraine have been off the job for five weeks. There is more in store, if large enough masses of Frenchmen can be persuaded to fall in step.

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