Commonwealth and Foreign
SLACK WATER IN FRANCE
By D. W. BROGAN 1T was two years since I had been last in France, and, then as now, I had arrived in Paris On the eve of July t4th.
In 1935 the day of the Fete Nationale had been marked by the first great demonstration of the Front Populaire against " the Fascist menace," and it was to the cry of De la Rocque au poteau that the very varied groups of Communists, Youth, Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, Orthodox Socialists and not quite orthodox Radicals marched behind red and tricolour banners in what was still a novel conjunction. The pro- cession, or series of processions, was highly impressive and highly significant ; it showed that the follies of the Right had, as usual, been the salvation of the Left, that the Communists had fully repented of imbecile alliance with the assailants of the rigime and that, if there really was a Fascist menace (and in Paris good observers thought that there was), it was more than matched by the resolution of the Paris workmen not to go down quietly before it.
Nineteen hundred and thirty-seven was, as the Americans say, something else again. The procession was as big as ever, bigger perhaps ; better drilled certainly, for now there were many groups which could and did sing both the Marseillaise and the Internationale, an ideal aimed at but not attained in 1935. But the spirit had changed. It was still possible to condemn De la Rocque to the firing post, but the " Colonel Count" is not a very effective scare- crow in 1937. He has degenerated into a mere politician, a mere journalist ; no longer is he a saviour of France from the corrupt politicians of all parties, and less than ever now that it has been circumstantially asserted by a former partisan, and not really denied by himself, that the chief of the Croix de Feu was actually (like so many of the politicians against whom he thundered) on the secret pay-roll of the Tardieu and Laval Governments. The original driving force behind the Front Populaire was fear, partly genuine, partly artfully exaggerated, of a Fascist movement. That fear, at the moment, is almost entirely fictitious or entirely external. For there is a real fear, the fear of war, of war spreading from Spain, perhaps from China ; and, if there is one rule of French politics that seems still to stand, it is that no party, no personality, can stand the imputation of being bellicose.
In the provinces the party cries are the same, but among peasants at least there seems to be less enthusiasm for active aid to Valencia than Parisians suspect. For one thing the Spanish war has lasted a year ; it is a permanent feature of the news, like the forest fires in the Var or the accidents at level crossings. The decisive victories on both sides are beginning to have an odd resemblance in the minds of many Frenchmen to the decisive victories of the late War. It was a Socialist deputy for a mainly agricultural constituency who shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the latest news of Government triumphs. "AU official communiques are bogus ; Salamanca or Valencia, it's just the same and just like the last War." And it should be remembered that even the most pacifist Frenchman has had willy-nilly a military training, which makes him suspicious of the official bourrage de crdne that comes from all army headquarters. And he has, too, a certain minimum of professional compet- ence in military matters that makes him ready to smile (and sometimes sneer) at the technical side of the Spanish war. The Basques and Madrilenos (no doubt) fought well, but how incompetently ! As for the Catalans, they talk even more and do even less than the most loud-mouthed liar of the Old Port of Marseilles. This type of average Frenchman wants his Government to keep an eye on Spain ; he doesn't want a German- or Italian-controlled government to the west of Toulon and Algiers, and he is astounded at. the apparent complacency of the British Government at the danger to Gibraltar. But of crusading zeal for the Spanish republic there seems to be a diminishing supply. The policy of delay and of strict collaboration with Britain seems generally acceptable.
It would be too much to say that the same is true of internal politics. Electorally the movement is still to the Left. The defeat of ex-Communist Doriot's candidates in his own old constituency of Saint Denis, the universal conviction (on Right and Left) that the approaching local government elections will reinforce the Front Populaire, are proof enough of that.
But it is difficult (not quite impossible however) for a militant who hoped for a new heaven and a new earth in 1936 to be enthusiastic for a government with M. Camille Chautemps at the head and with M. Georges Bonnet at the Treasury. The two hundred families are having a little of their revenge, and the economies and new taxes imposed by decree-law by M. Georges Bonnet have a remarkable resemblance to the decree-laws of M. Pierre Laval. The "wall of money" that seemed ready to fall at the blast of the Blum trumpet last June has proved itself quite as effective an obstacle as it was in 1924-6 to M. Herriot and, in 1933, to M. Daladier. Even with M. Jouhaux, the Sir Walter Citrine of France; at the board of the Bank of France, the same old game seems to go on. Prices are rising and, since the Government has professed to forbid rises and since this is still the country far more of Colbert than of Turgot, rises can only be due to the wickedness of the trusts and the banks and the radical senators who torpedoed M. Blum.
It is not altogether surprising, then, that skilled observers of the temper of the country note a cooling-off in the tempera- ture of the masses. And it is not surprising that the Social- ists, forced to collaborate with the Radicals in this policy of Red economic retreat, should look with alarm at the pressing invitations of the Communists to unite in one great workers' party. For the Communists may promise to be as free and democratic and as independent of outside governments as they like, few Socialists believe that the wire to Moscow will be cut, or that the new united party will be able to pursue any policy that goes against the desires of the Soviet Foreign Office, or that, in the nem party any more than in the already united trades unions, they will be able to save themselves from Communist boring from within. The split of 1920 will be renewed, and to the profit of those old masters of the political game, the Radicals, who know that you may rule party congresses by the votes of fire-eating militants, but that the voters of Gonfle-Bonfigue expect and will be content with a good deal less than a new heaven and a new earth.
But it should be remembered that the voters who swept M. Blum into power last year have got a good instalment of heaven anyway. The law of forty hours may have (almost certainly it has) put up the costs of production to a degree that accentuates the already difficult economic position of France. But it has given leisure and paid holidays to millions to whom the old French religion of endless work and economy has lost Much of its meaning in the new machine-world. Can you wonder that the workers are grateful for what they have, even if they are resigned to not having any more for a bit ? And not only the workers are grateful-; the Office du Ble has, by hook or by crook, improved the position of the peasant. Indeed, next to my having seen a fish caught from the Pont Neuf, I rank among the most unexpected things that have ever occurred to .me in France the admission of a peasant acquaintance of mine not merely that he had a good and abundant crop of wheat but that he was satisfied with the price. If that spirit is widespread in ,France, there is no immediate market for local Hitlers or Stalins. .
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