Dramatic Artist

From OARSIE CILLIE

PARIS

THE first published work b} Charles de Gaulle. I recorded in the French Who's Who is a play in verse. Written when he was verY young, it is probably very bad, but it points t° a factor in his political success—and in the hatred and distaste that he arouses in some quarters. He is the kind of dramatic artist who tills the stage all by himself. Once under %31 11) artistic handling is entirely subordinate to the event and the necessary decision. So it was oh June 18, 1940, when there was no duplication between himself and the presentation of himself. In a sense, indeed, there was no performance.

The President's tour of Germany a per- formance, a superb performance with just enough dissent in the audience for the enthusiasticallY favourable reaction of the rest to be the more convincing. It is recorded that when he stood bare-headed in the rain at Dusseldorf SOF11C of the Germans were seen to close their umbrellas. *That is audience control! It ws a performance in the service of a great idea, but with a selection of themes for effect and not, as on June 18, 1940. in order to present a few essential facts, The Presi- dent knew he was 'good.' He returned radiant. He might well be.

But the trouble about the President's latter-daY performances is that those who have suffered from his long complicated manceuvres, who ba ve accepted what seemed to be firm assurances, have begun to complain. Those of us vv" approved 'Grosso Modo,' and his latter-d objectives in,aY to notice that there was less than frankness in his say, Algeria, were a little slow handling of those who did not. There was the

., one NNaY flattery of the 'I have understood you' speech in Algiers immediately after his return to power. There were the innumerable actions that to an intention of staving in Algeria in pointed or another, conflicting with occasional indications Of the direction in which he was really moving, Which might be interpreted as showing the true course. It is not surprising that those Frenchmen Whose lives were most affected should hate him so rnuch.

Then in Germany there is the fact that General de. Gaulle in his first term of office and his subsequent years of opposition was again and again the opponent of restored national sovereignty for that country. Evolution in the ludgment of events is no doubt the duty even more than the right of public men; such changes, however, consort ill with a careful build-up of

all-wisdom. His capacity for learning from events iS genuine, but it is not an aspect of his char- acter that the President uses in his performances

of himself. Left with no indication that the President could ever have held another opinion, the citizen with a memory is left to form his own adverse judgments. This provokes, for instance,

the enraged comment of the Le Monde leader- writer the other day who suggested that, if the

Germans lost their affection for him, the Presi-

dent might yet be seen winning rounds of aPplause in Moscow as he evoked the grand old Franco-Russian alliance.

All this should be remembered when the Presi- dent's conduct on his German tour and his

intniediate projects in French affairs are con- sidered. On his shoulders, those of the prophet Of French greatness, fate has laid the task of aecolonialisation and the developing of a com- Pensating living space in a Europe to be shared

With other ex-imperial powers. He is conscious

°f his age and not sure whether Britain will make a reliable co-European. He laid it on rather thick

in Germany in the hope •of making secure, at least, the Whole of his Europe, so as to

s.t.rengthen his hand against the danger of a fatal adution by uncomprehending Anglo-Saxons.

His internal problems interlock with the exter-

nal °nes. He has to find a means of convincing !h. e French army that it has as important and iinsPiring a task in defending Western civilisation 11 El-trope as it thought it had in Africa. He cce,rlaiolY imagines this more easily achieved in se association with the Germans than with the British, who arc already tied up with the Americans.

0 At home, in order that France should hold its pwrl within this Europe, and on the basis of this s—tur

°Pe in world affairs, he must ensure the

„abilitY of government by giving his successors le authority based on public election instead of etcsystem by which he himself was chOsen- runcli0111 by the mayors. This alone will in the long give the President he conceives the necessary ptue'llority to resist the Assembly, which is at datseot the one body that can claim to be man- ed by universal suffrage. Since there is no tZist.i°n of the President abandoning his right of Iss°1ve the Assembly, there is no prospect on a., balance between President and Parliament Zrierican lines. The Sharp opposition of the Assembly and fl v' to the President's proposed reform has ref''evinced him that he can hest put it through by so.adee,,,rldum, by-passing Parliament. He has per- Li himself that at least the spirit of the orist it uti lett,, on would permit this, in spite of the

Which to the normal eye makes it quite clear that all constitutional reforms must first be voted by the Assembly and the Senate. This is a grave matter. The constitution is not only the constitution, but it is the President's con- stitution. He made it, and the first of his functions as therein defined is to see that it is respected.

The President's narrow escape from mur- derers' bullets made the majority of his country- men sharply aware of the disaster that his disappearance might provoke. He is expected to win his battle over the constitution—but the comments on the President's triumphal tour in Germany, the opposition of the parties to the President's constitutional innovations, even the verdict of the Troyes jury on the five men who had tried to murder him a year ago (one sen- tenced to twenty years, three to ten years. and one to five) all point to his growing isolation.