The Wanganui Chronicle. THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1946. DE GAULLE DEPARTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 20, 24 January 1946, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1946. DE GAULLE DEPARTS

Charles de Gaulle has resigned .from his office as President of the French and has departed from Paris for a nearby destination. The paucity of the luggage which went with, him lias prompted the belief that his decision has not been, in his own mind, as irrevocable as his letter of resignation stated it to be. What is the reason for this latest move?

General Charles de Gaulle occupies a position which is unique in the national life of France. During the hours when the enemy was overrunning the country, his was the voice crying “Fight on! Fight on!” lie had previously urged his country to equip its army with tanks and to contemplate a war of manoeuvre. Though his voice went unheeded he kept up his insistent cry. ’ When defeat was inevitable his resourceful mind urged that the army should retire into the Normandy Peninsula, there, to withstand a siege war. France again turned a deaf ear to his pleading and capitulated. De Gaulle went overseas to London, and by sheer persistence came to be regarded as France personified. “I am France!” he is reported to have said on important occasions. So determined was he that France in defeat should not suffer more than necessary that he adopted an intransigeant attitude even towards the allies of his country. His interview in Egypt with Mr. R. G. Casey was said to have ended in a shouting match. In season and out of season he claimed to be France, and there is no doubt now that in large measure lie was so. When France was enduring her darkest years it was the name of de Gaulle which gave hope to the Resistance Movement and inspired the faint-hearted. Small wonder that at the conclusion of the fighting lie should have entered Paris wearing the halo of a New Evangel to his nation! Fears naturally grew up as to whether this man who had succeeded so well, might not follow the precedent set by Napoleon Bonaparte and move to perpetuate his dominant position. When he endeavoured to preserve the stability of the country by advancing a scheme which had some of the elements of the “country quota” in it these fears grew stronger. When the Trades Unions, or the Confederation du Travail as the combination of these bodies is called, joined with the parties concerned to protest against the plan for the general election, de Gaiille replied expressing surprise that the C.G.T. should try to meddle in polities and pointing that by law their activities should be limited to Trades Union affairs, lie thus antagonised a large section of organised labour and made his position with the politicians more difficult. At the general elections de Gaulle received an overwhelming endorsement of his policy, but the voting in respect to the Parliamentary representatives moved not to the Right, where de Gaulle has his spiritual home, but to the Left. The situation after the elections was, therefore, one of difficulty. Parliamentarians always appear to be time-wasters: in this appearances do them an injustice. The non-parliamentarian always feels that the time taken in negotiation and in Parliamentary debate is but a clogging of the wheels. He doos not appreciate that a Parliament is but the condensation within one comparatively small organism of the whole of the life of the nation and that it is the concentration of the whole national life at this vital central point which slows down parliamentary procedure. Restless to put France upon her feet once again so that she might become strong and able to take her rightful place in the world, de Gaulle found in the discussions and dissensions with which he has been surrounded nothing but exasperation. His endeavours to put an end to this frustration led him several times to threaten to resign from his office. Now he has carried out his threat. This may be the culmination of a growing belief that he could achieve no great good and would only Jose in personal stature if he remained in office. To resign now may mean that he could live politically to fight on another day: to remain would mean that he would ensure his own eclipse. If de Gaulle has resigned in order to strengthen his own hand in dealing with the immediate situation lie must be sure that there is nobody on the stage who can step into his shoes. Should his place bb filled then de Gaulle’s eclipse is likely to be. swift. At the moment there does not appear to be anyone who is his equal in stature, but men do not have to be equal in stature to their immediate predecessors to enable them to become so eventually. The ease with which President Truman has taken over the arduous task of leading the United States of America when it dropped from the dead hand of Franklin Roosevelt is an indication of what can happen in France. In the United States, however, the political situation was stable; in France it is mercurial, without cohesion. If de Gaulle,«with his tremendous prestige, cannot bring cohesion to the public life of France, will anyone else succeed? The question prompts another one: Is it prestige that is required or is it consummate tact, which quality de Gaulle does not possess? The General may have made an astute move by resigning and leaving the parties the responsibility of meeting the electors with nothing done and no whipping-boy available to them. If the parties agree Io bring him back to the Pi-esideney they realise their difficulties in dealing with him will be greater in the future than they have been in the past. If a new leader can be found and he is outside the political arena it may be that a less insistent voice will, in the new conditions, accomplish more than the strident tones of him who, in the dark days, persistently proclaimed “I am France!” and carried this conviction from his own mind to practically everyone else. Has France found herself again or has she still need of de Gaulle? France alone can decide that issue.