The New French Government

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22305, 20 January 1938, Page 10

The New French Government

After an anxious week, France once more has a Cabinet. M. Chautemps is back in office with a Ministry consisting of 18 Radicals and no Socialists, a Ministry, that is, which represents the least extreme section of the Popular Front. No doubt M. Chautemps hopes that by this manoeuvre he will keep the Popular Front intact and at the same time quieten the fears jf industrial and financial interests. Although for a brief period the change may have this effect, it is obvious enough that only a temporary equilibrium has been reached. At the moment the threat of a financial crisis and of foreign complications is a disciplining influence; but once the scare is over, the position of M. Chautemps must become untenable. M. Blum’s Socialists, with 146 seats, are still by far the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies; and it is only with Socialist support that M. Chautemps has a majority. The real powers in the country are the Socialist National Council, the verdict of which M. Chautemps awaited before he took office, and the French equivalent of the Trade Union Congress. That, perhaps, explains why M. Bonnet, though not a Socialist, has been replaced in the Finance Ministry by M. Marchandeau, a comparative nonentity. M. Bonnet probably refused office because he knew that the programme of financial reforms to which he committed himself will never be carried out by a Government dependent on Socialist support. What will happen when M. Chautemps discovers, as N he must before long, that there is no policy which will gatisfy both the Popular Front and big business, it is difficult to foresee. The new Cabinet is as far to the right as any Cabinet supported by the Socialists can be; when it falls France must have either a Socialist Cabinet or a minority Cabinet.