Jeremiad

The prophet Jeremiah was hardly more sorrowful than sad-faced General Charles de Gaulle, announcing his decision last week to disband his political party. De Gaulle has always had a distaste for what he calls "the sterile games of politics." Although his Rally of the French People polled 4,300,000 votes in the 1951 elections and, next to the Communists and Socialists, is the largest party (85 seats) in the National Assembly, De Gaulle announced that henceforth his party members will act "in their individual capacity ... in the games, the poisons and the delights of the system." Reason: declining public support, culminating in the party's defeat at the municipal elections a fortnight ago.

Lamented De Gaulle, in somber prose: "The nation, lacking leadership, falls back into its old divisions. These lower and paralyze it. Apart from the Communists, who stand separate from France, the Left still retains some inclination towards progress, but it only contemplates that the state should be weak and inconsistent.

The Right has not completely forgotten traditions, but it distrusts the people. Neither Right nor Left can govern. When they try to do it together, they only succeed in neutralizing each other."

The Confusion of Rulers. "The world knows it, the world which witnesses the sad parade of our political fair; the French people feel it, including those who, by habit, passion or interest have fought my efforts and who hide their remorse under reproaches or insults. Events prove it: the tragedy of the budget, economic stagnation, social injustices, trouble in North Africa, reverses in Indo-China, the lethargy of the nation, the confusion of the rulers who deliver to the foreigner the tattered remnants of a sovereignty which they can no longer bear."

De Gaulle accused the U.S. of backing the Right by "creating the impression of a certain security" with the Marshall Plan and the Atlantic Treaty. "Thus, the effort which I--surrounded by resolute Frenchmen--have been leading since the war, to enable our country to find its unity at last and to put at its head a real government, has so far failed to achieve its aim. I recognize this without equivocation. One must fear that it is to the detriment of France."

The stubborn, dedicated World War II leader of the Free French reminded the Left that, by turning against him after cooperating energetically in the establishment of the Fourth Republic, it had caused him to retire, and had then fallen "victim of the confusion of powers it had itself created." He reminded the Right that by coming back into public life in 1947 with his Rally of the French People, he had diminished the danger of Communism, internally and externally, but that the Right, "reassured, hostile to my desire for social action, influenced moreover by the feudal lords of money and press, the impenitent men of Vichy and foreign organizations," had then turned against him.

De Gaulle did not say what is also a fact, that his sterile refusal to join anti-Communist coalitions of either Left or Right has been the main cause of the instability of recent French governments. Only when a large section of his party threatened to bolt last January did De Gaulle give grudging permission to his deputies to support Premier Rene Mayer.

Simplicity & Grandeur. Neither Right nor Left was ready to rejoice at the dissolution of the intransigent Gaullist party. Many Frenchmen share his criticism of impotent postwar French politics, though rejecting his drastic remedies. Said leftist Combat: "Whatever each of us may think about General de Gaulle, it is impossible to ignore the simplicity, even grandeur, with which he recognizes his failure." Said conservative Le Monde:

"Nobody--opponent, friend or mere observer--can remain indifferent to the declaration of General de Gaulle, written in a language both harsh and beautiful . . . The failure of General de Gaulle is also our own failure."

While the Rally of the French People no longer exists as a parliamentary party, De Gaulle sees it "as an advance guard for the social and national regrouping of the people" when "public opinion, swayed by anxiety, wakes up with a start." But, said he, "the danger is, alas, that it may come in the form of a serious convulsion in which, once more, the supreme law will be the salvation of the motherland and the state."

To most Frenchmen the prophecy was undeniably gloomy. De Gaulle might answer that the prophet Jeremiah, in whose lifetime the Scythians swept over most of the civilized world, was also accused of undue gloominess.

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