FRENCH CONSTITUTION

Evening Star, Issue 25769, 16 April 1946, Page 6

FRENCH CONSTITUTION

PROPOSALS PUBLISHED COMPROMISE ADAPTED TO COUNTRY'S NEEDS LONDON, April 14. The text of the proposed new French Constitution, which will be the subject of a national referendum on May 6, has been published, together with the final report of the Assembly's Constitution Commission, in a 53-page document, says the ' Daily Telegraph's ' Paris correspondent. The authors describe the proposed Constition as a realistic compromise adapted to the needs of the country, which is " still convalescing from the moral and political disorder caused by the war, occupation, and its arbitrary government." It is seen as a transition between the Third Republic and the " new social and political order which circumstances made necessary in the field of home and international policy." The first _ section of the report is clearly inspired by mistrust of -the Assembly _ for the executive autonomy ' deemed indispensable by General de Gaulle. It declares that France, not being a Federal State with strong traditions of local government, could not accept a President on the American lines without running a risk of dictatorship. The second section states the commission's reasons for repudiating the idea of a second Chamber. It points out that the former Senate was " a barrier in the way of revolutionary parties to make it impossible for them to obtain power by illegal means." The commission is not opposed to a second Chamber, but to its being given political powers, as the Senate's position was responsible for the political instability of the Third Republic.