REFERENDUM IN FRANCE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24868, 7 May 1946, Page 5

REFERENDUM IN FRANCE

Constitution Poll Result REJECTION HELD CERTAIN (N.Z. Press Association-Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) PARIS, May 6. The rejection of the proposed new French Constitution, which the Assembly voted by a narrow majority of 60 a fortnight ago, appears almost certain. Results from 91 departments, including all metropolitan France except Corsica, give the Ayes 9,208,551 votes and the Noes 10,367,432. Political circles of all parties accept a victory for the Noes as inevitable. Paris voted against the proposal, the figures being 1,204,860 to 1,189,855, with the poll 761,310 to 594,742 in the city proper. Official figures in Algeria show 45 per cent, in favour of the proposed Constitution and 55 per cent, against. The Paris correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that the re-\ j ection of the Constitution by the referendum will mean that the elections on June 2, instead of being for a National Assembly lasting five years, will be for a new Constituent Assembly to sit for seven months and draft a new Constitution. A feature of France’s rejection of the constitution proposals was an emphatic “No” from the farming areas and a fairly substantial vote against the proposals in industrial areas, says the Paris correspondent of Reuter’s. The rejection of a single chamber legislature. which was described by opponents as “a straight roaa <o che single party dictatorship,” was ascribed by political circles generally to, frst, farmers’ discontent with low official prices, their distrust of the currency and their reaction against the '*overnment’s failure to provide essential goods, and second, to a revolt of a big section of the Socialist vorkers and the white collar classes against Communist domination of labour organisations, and the official Socialist Party’s apparent subordination to the Communi-A Party oh important issues Earlier reports from all parts of France indicated that voting in the referendum was from 80 to 90 per cent., which was one of the heaviest polls in history. The voters were asked the straightforward question: “Do you approve of the Constitution adopted by the Constituent Assembly.” Those who replied “Yes” assented to the measure under which: (1) The Senate would be abolished and replaced by a second chamber which is powerless to check the National Assembly. (2) The President would become a figurehead.

(3) The National Assembly would elect both the President and Prime Minister.

(4) When the republic is declared by the assembly to be endangered, freedom of movement and assembly, the liberty of the press, and secrecy of correspondence might be abolished by a two-thirds majority.