Day of Decision

Communists were cocky, moderates jittery as France held her referendum on the Constitution of the Fourth Republic. Wiseacres had predicted that most citizens were fed up with seven months of wrangling in the Assembly, that popular disgust with politics would be reflected in a light vote, that the disciplined Left would profit from public apathy, that the way was paved for a solid "Yes" vote on the Communist-sponsored Constitution. The result would be a one-chamber government and a probable party-machine dictatorship.

But as the campaign wound up, hot & heavy, so did the interest of the electorate. At Clermont-Ferrand, M.R.P. War Minister Edouard Michelet was urging hard-headed Auvergnats to vote no when Communist Deputy Jean Curabet, who had been razzing him from the audience, leaped onto the platform and clipped him on the chin. Curabet then seized the speaker's carafe and emptied it on the head of stunned Minister Michelet--a teetotaler, but not that partial to water. At this point a young woman jumped onto the platform and went at Communist Curabet with her fists. Reported the semiofficial news agency: "The meeting then broke up in confusion."

"The First Tunic." In the midst of national confusion, President Felix Gouin kept a Socialist calm, said, "The main virtue of the Constitution is that it exists." Other leaders deplored the possibility that Frenchmen might plump for the Red-inspired charter simply by default. Philippe Barres, editor of Paris-Presse, put it this way: "What would worry me . . . would be the spectacle of a people so disillusioned as to adopt a new Constitution in the same way as a conscripted soldier arriving gloomily at the barracks accepts the first tunic which a sergeant tosses his way."

A conservative outlined the future: "If the vote is 'Yes,' the June 2 elections will bring a Communist-Socialist regime, with the Communists controlling the Ministries of War and Interior [police]. For perhaps a year the Communists will govern reasonably. When they feel they have the situation in hand, they'll start putting on the heat--limiting more and more individual rights, etc. Eventually the Socialists will crack. Half will go with the Communists, half will move to the Right. The Communists then will no longer have a majority in the Assembly. And this is where, dropping all democratic pretense, they'll try to stay in power by force--and they'll have the means, too."

The Communists snarled back: "All the old Vichyites ... all near collaborationists, are against the Constitution. Those who said yes to Hitler say no today."

Yes or No? On voting day all forecasts of an apathetic electorate proved wron?. Some 19.000.000 Frenchmen and Frenchwomen trooped to the polls. By a decisive majority France voted "No."

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