CRUCIAL VOTE IN FRANCE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27374, 12 June 1954, Page 7

CRUCIAL VOTE IN FRANCE

“Miracle Needed To Save Regime”

(Rec. 10 p.m.) PARIS, June 10. It seems that only a miracle can save the Laniei Government on Saturday, when it will face a confidence vote in the National Assembly for the third time in four weeks.

This is the opinion of practically every newspaper and lobby observer after the crushing snub administered to the Government last night when a Government-sponsored vote at the end of the Indo-China debate was turned down by 324 votes to 269. Many French observers consider that the Government might well have resigned after this vote, although it was taken oijly on a question of procedure. But the Government preferred to await the formal vote of confidence, thus possibly creating a slight chance of persuading enough deputies not to change the Government during the Geneva conference and at the same time preparing the way for general elections before the expiry of the fiveyear period, in 1956. The French Constitution says that if two governments are overthrown within 18 months the President of the Republic can, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, order Parliament to be dissolved and new elections held.

The basic truth behind the present unpopularity of the Government is the feeling that France is being put under excessive pressure from America in favour of a policy which a large part of the country does not approve. The Indo-China debate last week, and this last one, showed that the Parliamentary representatives of France will not have anything to do with capitulation in Indo-China, but, at the same time, they refuse resolutely to get France engaged in a kind of antiCommunist crusade.

The Indo-China debate showed that an increasing number of Parliamentary representatives fear that the Foreign Minister (Mr Bidault) is the acknowledged, or occult, apostle of such an American-inspired crusade. There is, therefore, a strong demand for his removal from the Foreign

The Assembly-also wants to eliminate the Prime Minister (Mr Laniei) and the Defence Minister (Mr Rene Pleven). Mr Pleven has also been criticised as supporting American international policy.