Happy

Last week Henri Laurent, a hardware clerk on Paris' fusty southern edge, unburdened his mind. "Voyez vous," said Laurent, "for five long years I stood here and watched the Boche walking arrogantly around my quarter. In those days I never thought I could ever again have a surfeit of democracy. To get out of bed on Sunday morning and walk to the polling booth does not seem a very heavy price to pay for freedom, but the French people are wearying of the process."

At last Sunday's balloting (the ninth since liberation), the voters chose some 85,000 electors, who in turn will elect part of the Council of the Republic, which replaces the old Senate. The machinery for creating this body is among the most formidably complex ever devised, even by the French, whose vaunted clarte is not at its best in election laws. The concierge in TIME's Paris Bureau said: "I am not voting tomorrow because I wouldn't understand what I was doing."

Many other Frenchmen felt the same way; 28% of them stayed away from the polls. A high abstention rate was expected to work in favor of the Communists, who do not stay home. Nevertheless, Foreign Minister and Provisional President Georges Bidault's Catholic Progressive M.R.P. made an amazingly good showing, and was about even with the Reds, who lost votes for the first time since liberation. The Socialists lost even more heavily than last time out.

Eyeing the returns, M.R.P. Leader Francisque Gay tugged his pointed grey beard, twinkled: "This morning we are happy."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.