FRENCH POLITICS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20327, 28 January 1936, Page 5

FRENCH POLITICS

NEW CABINET IN OFFICE United Press Association—By Electric Tel egrapb —Copyright PARIS, January 24. M. Sarraut has formed a Cabinet, which is composed as follows: Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior—M. Sarraut. Minister of Foreign Affairs —M. Flandin. Minister of Finance —M. Regnier. Minister of War—M. Maurin. Minister of Air—M. Deat. Minister of Marine—M. Pietri. Minister of Commerce —M. Bonnet. M. Flandin stands for a pro-British policy. M. Regnier’s appointment will reassure business interests of the Government’s determination to defend the franc, and is especially welcome as the Bank of France has lost £8,000,000 in gold in the last three days. In the first announced arrangement of the Cabinet M. Paul-Boncour was allocated the portfolio of War and M. Laurenteynac that of Air, but lastminute difficulties caused a reconstruction. M. Albert Sarraut has had a chequered career in French politics since, at the age of thirty-four, he received his first important Ministerial post as Under-Secretary for the Interior in the Clemenceau Administration of 1906. He resigned that office because of difficulties in his constituency of Narbonne, returned to politics in 1909 as Under-Secretary at the War Ministry in the first Brian Cabinet, and two years later went off to Indo-China, where he was appointed governor. On the outbreak of war he returned to France and became Minister of Public Instruction, later taking his place in the 30th Infantry Regiment and winning the Croix de Guerre. Then he went off to Indo-China for a second term as governor, and was wounded by a shot fired by a discharged official. In 1922 he became Minister for the Colonies in the Poincare Government, and in that capacity drew up a scheme for the development of the units of the French colonial empire. In 1925 he went to Angora as French Ambassador, and in 1926 he was elected to the Senate. He entered the Poincare Government of July, 1927, as Minister of the Interior. Under Chautemps, during the Five Power Naval Conference of 1930, M. Sarraut became Minister of Marine and accompanied M. Briand to London for the sittings of the Conference. He held his post in the Steeg Cabinet and in the next three Governments was Minister for the Colonies. At the end of 1933 he became Premier, but when the Government fell on the financial issue early in 1934 he went back to his old post of Minister of the Interior under M. Doumergue. He is a Radical-Socialist. M. Etienne Flandin was Prime Minister in 1934, and is leader of the Left Republican Party. M. Marcel Regnier, like M. Sarraut. is a member of the Left Democratic group. He has been a Senator since 1920, and General Reporter of the Budget since 1933.