Pro-Gaullist Majority

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29990, 27 November 1962, Page 13

Pro-Gaullist Majority

(N .Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, Nov. 25. The Gaullists and other candidates pledged to support President de Gaulle have won an absolute majority in the new Lower House of the National Assembly, the Minister of the Interior (Mr Roger Frey) announced tonight. The Gaullists themselves obtained 227 seats out of the total of 482, compared with 165 seats held by them in the old Assembly. In addition, the new Government can count upon between 30 and 35 members of other parties. The new Government will probably again be led by the

outgoing Prime Minister (Mr Georges Pompidou). In 91 constituencies there was a straight fight between a Gaullist and a candidate who had been promised the Communist votes. The issue a* stake today, according to French political commentatom, was whether, for the first time in French history, a single party would secure an assembly majority without groups. Mr Frey tonight said: "We have every reason to be profioundly satisfied with the

results of these elections, which confirm the nation’s unquestioned backing of General de Gaulle and his party. ..." There was a big Jump in the number of Communists elected—thanks to the popular front alliances with Socialists in a number of constituencies. There will be at least 35 Communists in the new Assembly, compared with 10 in the old House. President de Gaulle’s first Prime Minister (Mr Michel Debre) was defeated in the Tours East constituency by Mr Fernand Berthouin, the Communist-supported Radical. The Roman Catholic Canon

Kir, 87-year-old Mayor of the wine capital of Dijon, was re-elected with the support of the Communist vote against his only rival, a Gaullist candidate. The Socialist leader (Mr Guy Mollet), Prime Minister at the time of the Suez crisis in 1956, today defeated a Gaullist candidate.