Sorcerer's Apprentice

A young mother, stranded in Paris' Gare de l'Est by striking railway workers, slept with her three children in the stalled train. Since she had only 200 francs (57-c-) to feed her brood, she went a whole day without eating anything herself. Another young woman, waxing indignant over the mother's plight, was asked if she blamed the government or the strikers for the mess. She answered: "Ni I'un ni I'autre; c'est moche, c'est tout [Neither of them; it's lousy, that's all]."

"I Say No." That seemed to be the prevailing, resigned mood as the wave of French strikes rolled on through a second week. It was not a general strike; it was, rather, a chain explosion of work stoppages launched in anticipation of governmental economy measures by new right-wing Premier Joseph Laniel (TIME, Aug. 17). Government industries and services --transport, mail, telephones, telegraph, gas, electricity, garbage collections, etc.--were crippled but not quite paralyzed. Labor efforts to extend the walkouts to private industry failed almost entirely.

There was no violence. Using troops, police and paid students or old men, the government provided army vehicles to run a big truck and bus service in Paris and from Paris to the provinces. Some mail was sorted and delivered, some trains ran, some emergency phone calls got through. Prisoner trusties collected garbage, and Red Cross workers buried the dead in "urgent" cases.

Premier Laniel vowed not to give in. In a radio address he said: "I say no to a strike which seeks to paralyze everything ... I say no to maneuver or pressure, direct or indirect, brought against the government. I say no to the discomfort which the strikers are inflicting on the more numerous who are not on strike."

Increasing Irritation. The trouble had started among the postal workers of Bordeaux, set off by portly (250-lb.) Camille ("Scarface") Mourgues. secretary-general of the Force Ouvriere's postal, telephone and telegraph unions. A World War II veteran who was captured by the Germans, escaped, got a prominent facial scar fighting in the Maquis, Camille Mourgues wised up to the Communists early in the postwar period and helped to found the Force Ouvriere, which is Socialist and antiCommunist. Though he dislikes the Communists, Mourgues dislikes French governmental politics also. The stoppages spread at first because of the miserably paid workers' increasing irritation with a series of short-lived and timid regimes. The trouble was kept going largely by rivalry between the Force Ouvriere and the Communist-dominated C.G.T. The Reds had not only gone along for the ride, but, as usual, were trying to take over the driver's seat.

The Force Ouvriere and the Catholic unions (which had joined the walkouts in some instances) realized this, and were looking for a way out. With withering accuracy the Paris newspaper Figaro commented : "The strike was rashly let loose by the sorcerer's apprentice, the Force Ouvriere, wanting to show up the C.G.T., which was polishing up its weapons for the autumn. But now the strike is being taken in hand by the Communists."

Hope for a Compromise. All of the unions were trying to force a reconvening of the National Assembly--the Socialists and Catholics in real hope of a solution, or at least a graceful pretext for going back to work, the Communists in hope of a brawl that would worsen the nation's plight. Laniel was conferring with the Force Ouvriere and Catholic leaders, but not with the Reds.

The Communists were determined to get the maximum benefit to themselves--that is, the maximum damage to France --out of the trouble that others had started. At week's end they were calling out industrial workers in the Marseille area and planning parades for this week (probably with violence) in celebration of the ninth anniversary of France's liberation from the Germans.

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