PROBLEM OF FORMING FRENCH GOVERNMENT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22698, 24 July 1948, Page 5

PROBLEM OF FORMING FRENCH GOVERNMENT

PARIS. July 22.

M. Andre Marie is apparently having difficulty in trying to form a Government.

He negotiated all day with the leaders of all parties except the Communists.

The Associated Press correspondent says M. Marie appears to be deciding to base his Ministry cn all parties from the Socialists to the extreme right and has even conferred with General de Gaulle's representative. The principal difficulties says the correspondent have come from the Popular Republicans, who stated after negotiations that they had tried unsuccessfully to obtain details of M. Marie’s economic policy. They were also worried about religious policy because M. Marie is an ardent anti-clerical.

M. Reynaud has announced that he has accepted the finance portfolio. The last of the 60,000 striking French civil servants have returned to work. Union officials advised them to “go slow when their work was not of social importance.”