851.00/12–1846: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
us urgent
[Received 7 p.m.]
6169. My 6157 December 17.81 At the conclusion of the Assembly debate last evening Blum received a vote of confidence of 544 against 2 (Aumefan, PRL, and Louis Marin) with 72 reported abstentions (chiefly Rightists). It is perfectly obvious that this apparently massive vote of confidence was not an enthusiastic approval of Blum and the Socialist program but rather tacit acknowledgement that at this time there was no alternative solution. For the political leaders were aware that if the Blum government were not approved, the impudence [impotence?] not only of political parties and the Assembly but perhaps even of French democracy itself as now practiced would be even more clearly exposed to the French public, thus favoring an attempt at some “extreme” solution (the Communists or De Gaulle). While a breakdown of democracy might not in itself be distasteful to the Communists or to certain elements of the extreme right, each is restrained by the fear that the other would be the beneficiary of such a breakdown.
While there is, of course, general relief that a solution—temporary though it is—has been found and that France again has a government [Page 478] which will try to “save the franc” by adopting urgent financial and economic measures, the first reaction insofar as the future is concerned is that no solution whatsover has been found for the basic disagreements which divide the parties. It is true that in the recent negotiations the four parties (Communists, Socialists, MRP and Rassemblement) have reached a measure of agreement on some general aspects of economic and financial policy but on other points including the critical questions of what political parties shall be included in the next government and the future distribution of ministerial portfolios the deadlock remains unbroken. (In his Assembly speech yesterday Duclos was intransigent in his insistence that the Communists receive one of the “three” big portfolios. Duclos accused the MRP and part of the Rassemblement of deliberately preventing the formation of a coalition government in order to pave the way for De Gaulle’s return.)
In other words, the acceptance yesterday of the Blum government as a temporary stop gap has simply postponed the crisis until January. If the different political parties do not reach general agreement during this period of grace so that a government with a workable majority can be installed following the election of the President of the Republic, France will one month hence be faced with the gravest of political crises. In any event, as things now look the coming period will be one of latent crisis with much political jockeying and maneuvering both as regards the next government and the Presidency, with things probably coming to a head about the middle of January.
Sent Dept as 6169. Repeated to London as 818, to Moscow as 432, to Rome as 307.
- Not printed.↩