France in Turmoil M. Blum's Government is, as usual, once
again facing defeat. Last week the Senate rejected his financial bills, after vicious personal attacks on him. He is now preparing a new financial programme, of which nothing is known except that almost certainly it will displease the Radicals and therefore, in all probability, the Senate also. In addition the Government, and the Front Populaire, is harassed by the strike of 35,000 iron and steel workers in Paris, though its end now appears to be in sight. It is difficult to exaggerate the confusion, and the danger, of French politics at the moment. With Franco's guns booming on the French frontier, the Front Populaire is riven by the question of des avions pour Espagne. The trades union leader M. Jouhaux is refused a hearing by the workers ; the Communists unavailingly denounce the " Trotskyist " strikes ; the Radicals fear their allies' pressure for a con- trolled economy. The only unifying factor is the movement for a National Government, for which M. Reynaud bravely continues to press. But the Right and Centre refuse co- operation with the Communists, the third largest party and the leaders of the Paris working class. And even the words " National Government " conceal profoundly conflicting tendencies. The Right-Wing M. de Kerillis, a fortnight ago a supporter of a Blum-Reynaud-Marin Government, now demands a " National Government " which is to mean a Directorate of six personalities, dissolution of the trade unions, strict Press censorship, prorogation of Parliament for two years. That is almost an invitation to civil war. * * * *
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