THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1936 FRANCE AND FASCISM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22434, 2 June 1936, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1936 FRANCE AND FASCISM

The new French Government will try to meet the challenge of Fascism by opposing it with a regime utterly different. Extremes will meet in an uncompromising political conflict. No middle way will have a moment's thought. This, at all events, is the policy enunciated by M. Blum, the chosen head of the incoming Cabinet, in his speech to the National Socialist Congress. The burden of his theme was a warning against Fascism. His political opportunity, conferred at the recent general elections, is evidently to be used to the full. At the polls this issue was clear. It was not the only one, but it was dominant. M. Laval's Government, weakened by the resignation of M. Herriot and other Radical Socialist Ministers, who represented the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, went out of office without waiting for a hostile parliamentary vote; and the voice of the electors gave the parties of the Left a decisive victory. They were united by hostility to Fascism, at home and abroad, and this ranged them solidly against thi Rexists, the Jeunesses Patriotes, the Solidarite Francaise, the Francisles, and the Croix de Feu, all these parties being at one, whatever else divided them, in their horror of what they deem democratic excesses. It may be noted by the way that the tendency of the bloc system prevailing in French politics —wherein a multitude of parties may coalesce and separate in accordance with immediate expediency rather than in allegiance to rigidly divisive principles—is to combine in negations, not positive crusades. Hence the present cleavage between a group of parties inclined with various intensity to autocratic ideals and an opposing group held loosely together by democratic aims.

Into this condition of affairs M. Blum has come as the spaar-head of the Left the combination of National Socialists, Radical Socialists and Communists, temporarily joined in their dread of Fascism. These parties, for the time being, have agreed to fight together in the Front Populaire, to the programme of which M. Blum has referred as an objective accepted by all adherents. How long he can hold the three parties together, and particularly how far he can carry the Communists along the Socialist road, is problematical. The kaleidoscopic changes in the grouping of French political parties suggest that ere long new affiliations will play havoc with the order now existent. But in the meantime, because of the mandate given by the electors, the new Government thus supported is bent on quelling Fascist activities. The task will not be easy. _ French Fascism has taken its cue from the success of the Italian and German campaigns to seize the reins of power. The use of force is included in the plans of some sections of the Right. Most notable of these is the Croix de Feu, which since its founding in 1927, as a body of ex-soldiers decorated for gallantry under fire, has grown into a widespread political organisation governed by military methods and assembling military material. Its members are uniformed, some of them armed, and it has an air force of 80 machines fully manned and equipped. These and similar facts may not be seriously indicative of immediate intentions to capture control of France, but they have some significance in view of the economic and political instability still vexing the country, in spite of the result of the recent polls.

Against whatever may be threatened by such developments M. Blum puts a programme equally extreme. He looks to government by trade unions, although he is careful to say that the Socialist Utopia may be long in coming and may be hindered on the way. This would seem to seek the averting of one tyranny by the imposition of another. However, the caveat he has entered against any sudden achievement of the purpose espoused by the National Socialist Congress makes it clear that he is mainly concerned at present with the obstruction of Fascist designs. This attitude should do more than rally the enthusiasm of the three parties of the Left. In French politics there has often appeared a Centre bloc, and while it seems for the nonce to have been obliterated, for all practical purposes, in the sharp friction between Left and Bight, there must be a considerable number of citizens unprepared to align themselves permanently with either extreme. To these the qualified proclamation of a Socialist Utopia may appeal as a programme not entirely unreasonable ; they may be prepared to go with him part of the way. Probably their readiness to do this, if no more, accounts partly for the swing to the Left manifested in the elections. They have no sympathy with Fascism and will be gratified if the new Government can effectively combat its arising; but whether their support will be maintained depends in some measure upon the economic activities of the Government when it is :in office..