OU Va t'on?

At Nice, where the infrequent clouds have a bright blue-and-silver lining, the city fathers spent 50,000,000 francs ($419,800) to put as amusing a face as possible on France's current history. One giant mask in this year's annual carnival (see cut) represented the 1940 German knockout blow, another Occupation's heavy hand, a third the joys and hopes of Liberation. A fourth was labeled "OU va t'on?" (Where do we go from here?). That one symbolized the France which last week teetered ominously between fresh hope and fresh danger.

Cat-&-Mouse. In Paris a cold wind blew all week. Bristly Benoit Frachon, working away in his cold office, amid the smoke and grit from the Gare de 1'Est, would have dearly loved to go fishing in the sun at one of his favorite Riviera vacation spots. But Frachon could not get away. As Communist boss of the Confederation General du Travail, he was directing one of the most massive and delicate operations in French labor history. His problem was to maneuver the C.G.T.'s six million members so as to take maximum political advantage of the bitter discontent arising from high living costs. The delicacy arose from an inhibition familiar to all Communist leaders: Frachon must not let his workers' drive for higher wages disrupt Russia's worldwide grand strategy. For example, anything approaching a Communist-led general strike in France would force a premature showdown in the French coalition government and stiffen the West's resistance against Russian demands at next month's Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference.

So Frachon played cat-&-mouse. France twitched and jumped with "token" strikes, ranging from the theater ushers, who would not take patrons to their seats, to the Paris police, who struck for four hours.* At the same time the subway workers struck. A stockbroker, Louis Molinier, watched the resulting traffic snarl in the Place de la Concorde. He pulled his coat collar up against the wind, shivered, and said: "It gives you the impression that a thousand men with rifles could take over the whole city."

That Trotsky Again. Millions of Frenchmen scented violence in the bitter wind. Socialist Premier Ramadier spent hours in his office neither reading nor writing--just tugging at his beard and staring out of the window. His biggest scare came when the rightist Parti Republicain de la Liberte scheduled a monster mass meeting at the Salle Wagram. Communists promptly called a meeting at the same place. Ramadier mobilized 25,000 police and soldiers, forced both parties to call off their demonstrations.

The fact that not even the Communists could control their followers indicated how touchy the situation was. The Red organ L'Humanite was among the Paris papers closed by a strike of printers and all other workers except journalists.

The picket line in front of L'Humanite was rushed by 350 members of a Comite de Defense de L'Humanite, a fancy name for a gang of thugs hired by L'Humanite's circulation department. After a brief battle, the pickets (about half of whom were members of the Communist Party) beat off L'Humanite's defenders. In similar cases capitalist publishers would be likely to charge that the strike was led by Communists. L'Humanite could not do that. Its friends said the strike was led by Trotskyites.

Bread & Wine. Most of the strike wave was in support of C.G.T.'s drive for a minimum wage of 7,000 francs ($59) a month. Many of the 1,300,000 Government employees (before the war there were 700,000) make less, and the raise would cost the French taxpayer 874 millions a year.

On the other hand, lower-bracket French workers, caught by inflation, had a case. The Depeche de Paris (before it was struck) published a table showing how living costs had risen:

PRICES IN FRANCS Bread Milk Wine (1 kilo) (1 liter) (1 liter) 1909 0.22 0.22 0.70 1925 1.40 1.15 1.35 1946 8.90 11.90 27.00

The paper concluded that in order to purchase two pounds of beef today a bank clerk must work ten hours, a judge four hours, a mechanic six hours.

The Communists admit that a general pay raise in the lowest brackets will mean at least a temporary sacrifice for all other brackets. Sample relative wages now paid in France are:

FRANCS PER MONTH

Movie star 1,000,000

Cabinet minister 50,000

Army general 40,000

The Bishop of Metz 20,000

Coal miner 10,000

Mechanic 9,500

Naked nightclub dancer 9,000

Policeman 7,000

Stenographer 6,000

Ramadier's alternative to rising wages is lower prices. His predecessor, Socialist Elder Statesman Leon Blum, checked last December's inflation spurt with a dramatic decree cutting all prices 5%. Ramadier, aware that this turned out to be the most popular move in domestic French politics since liberation, this week decreed another 5% cut. This hold-the-line policy, plus Jean Monnet's plan for reconstruction of French industry and exports, constitutes France's chief and perhaps only hope of stability.

But the pressure against the line, whipped up by Communist propaganda and a bitter winter, is growing. There are thousands like 46-year-old Marguerite Saulnier, flower-shop assistant, who says: "Of course, we must get higher wages. What's the good of talking about cutting prices by 5%? In my own store we raised prices by 10% before cutting them five. Anyway, prices would have to be halved before I could buy the proper food for my two children." And like Andre Fourgon, 28, a furniture mover from Lyons: "We ought to make up our minds about the Communists--either make a deal .with them or lock them all up. My only consolation is that things are apparently worse in Britain."

Of Light & Dark. Where does France go from here? TIME'S Paris Correspondent Andre LaGuerre summed it up:

"So the week ended in Paris on a subdued but distinct note of fear. Albert Petitjean, who runs a small bar off the Champs Elysees, and who is our favorite average citizen, was outwardly unworried when I asked him this morning how he thought things would pan out.

"'The cold will soon disappear,' he said, 'and there is nothing in this situation which a day of spring sunshine--and a compromise or two--will not blow away.'

"Albert is probably right--this time. Anyway, I could not tell him to quit whistling in the dark, because there is no equivalent to this phrase in the French language."

-To allay police unrest the Prefecture of Police asked the Government to approve a twelve-franc (10^) bonus for every policeman who reports a street accident.

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