Au Revoir?

In three minutes France's uneasy unity flew apart. President Charles de Gaulle summoned his ministers to the presidential offices in the dingy old War Ministry building in the Rue St. Dominique. Said he: "I have had enough. I do not want to assume direction of a Government in which political parties or groups do not cease to attack me." Then his long legs carried him from the room, past saluting sentries, to his car which drove him to suburban Neuilly. There, like any good bourgeois, Charles de Gaulle had a hearty Sunday dinner before going for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne with his wife.

Back in the Rue St. Dominique, bewildered newsmen tried to find out whether De Gaulle, who had resigned twice before in the past three months, really meant it. His secretary, Gaston Palewski, said: "General de Gaulle ... has left his post, and this is irrevocable. He is retiring definitely from political life."

Underlying reason for De Gaulle's resignation was the growing cleavage between Left and Right. It became sharper last week when the Communists and Socialists decided to coordinate their tactics more closely. In the Constituent Assembly the Communist-Socialist coalition was maneuvering to give the Fourth Republic a constitution that would make an all-powerful legislature and a weak executive. De Gaulle had insisted that France needed a stronger administration on the U.S. constitutional model. The same left-wing coalition again insisted that military appropriations be cut 20% in favor of reconstruction funds. De Gaulle had argued that France, in a "tense" world, needed more armed strength.

De Gaulle knew the Communists planned to step up their pressure against him. His idea was to beat the Left coalition to the draw by getting out and letting them try to form a government during a midwinter food and fuel shortage.

Irrevocable? Whom would the Left pick, if De Gaulle's resignation was indeed "irrevocable"? The Communists, after a hurried high-strategy meeting, announced their willingness to form a government. As the nation's largest party, they proposed a coalition Cabinet under their burly Secretary General Maurice Thorez, who spent most of the war years comfortably in Moscow. A more likely candidate of the Left coalition was oracular Socialist Vincent Auriol, foreign-affairs expert and a middleman in his party's divided house.

Arrayed against the coalition was a handful of survivors of the old rightist parties and the powerful Mouvement Republicain Populaire, the Christian-Democratic party which has given De Gaulle his stoutest support. The M.R.P. had been counted as left of center; now perhaps it might fall to the right.

On the Sunday night after his resignation, Charles de Qaulle spent hours alone in his study at the Neuilly villa. At 2 a.m. a few watchers saw his long, pencil-thin silhouette at his lighted bedroom window. For a long time he gazed into the night.

Paris, which has no Sunday-evening papers, did not learn that De Gaulle had quit until an enterprising owner of a mimeographing machine got out a handbill with the news. Parisians fought for it at two francs a copy. Next day, Soir-Express headlined De Gaulle's departure with a touch of skepticism. It said:

AU REVOIR?

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