Bomb for a Bordello

Out of the provinces last week came stocky, brash Pierre Poujade, convoyed by hundreds of his burly, leather-jacketed copains, and crying aloud against the "Jews and foreign interests" who had betrayed France in Algeria. Poujade was doing something he had sworn never to do: running for a seat in the National Assembly, which he calls "the biggest bor dello in France."

In the year since his shopkeepers' tax rebels had startled France by electing 53 Deputies in the national elections (TIME, Jan. 16, 1956), Poujade had gone nowhere but down. He had blustered about a march on Paris with 500,000 back-country adherents, but nothing happened. In the Assembly, his champions of tax reforms had made themselves a laughingstock. The only time they spoke up was to protest the unfairness of a tax rate per occupant instead of per night for houses of assignation (called "hotels de vingt minutes").

Trouble in the Ranks. By autumn there was outright rebellion in the ranks of his once dedicated Deputies. Four refused to hand over their monthly paychecks to Poujade. Another four resigned outright. His chief legislative lieutenant, ex-Paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen, vol unteered for service in Algeria. When Poujade refused to back France's assault on Suez, Le Pen threatened to return when his service was over and rally 19 other dissatisfied Poujadists into a new party. Poujade needed a triumph if he was to keep the leadership of his tattered forces.

The chance came in a district where, only two weeks before, others had staked much and lost. The district, on Paris' Left Bank, includes a cross section of all France--shopkeepers, concierges, the Latin Quarter's students, Grenelle's workingmen. When the death of a Deputy forced a special election, every party accepted it as the first major referendum since last year's national election, and committed its full forces--all but Poujade, who asked his followers to boycott the election. It proved to be the most riotous campaign in 20 years. There were bombings, street fights and sluggings between rightists and Communists, Poujadists and Radicals, as 23 candidates harangued and orated.

Humbling Vote. When the votes were counted, no one had won a majority-- thus requiring this week's runoff--but several had been humbled. The Communists, who before Hungary could count on one vote in every four in France, had dropped with an embarrassing thump from 130,000 votes to a modest 60,000. Pierre Mendes-France, who had staked his struggle to "revitalize and rejuvenate" the Radicals on the outcome, suffered a crushing defeat.

Campaigning on the issue of opposition to government repression in Algeria, Mendes was attacked by both Communists and rightists, who shouted him down, flung rotten vegetables at him. bombarded him with tear gas. His candidate got less than a third of the votes the Radicals polled a year ago. In the face of such repudiation, Mendes would probably retreat to his old role as a lone-wolf crier of doom. "They no longer understand me," he sighed.

The size of the first-run turnout indicated that few people had followed Poujade's instructions to boycott the election. His pride stung, Poujade called a press conference to announce (as his wife plac idly nursed their new six-weeks-old daughter) that he was taking the unusual step of filing for the runoff when he had not even been a candidate in the first election. He flooded the district with 800,000 pamphlets, held a mammoth rally in Paris' biggest arena, charged the Mollet government with "black cowardice" in its concessions to the Algerian Moslems. "Who among you hasn't wished that someone would one day put a bomb in the Assembly?" he cried. "If you want to put in that bomb, vote for me!"

At week's end the Left Bank gave its considered verdict. Result: an easy victory for Moderate Julien Tardieu. Poujade was fourth with 19,906 votes, a humiliating 6.4% of the total vote.

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