Conference files, lot 59 D 95, CF 108: Telegram
No. 520
The Ambassador in France (Dunn) to the Department of State1
7449. From the Secretary. After the second bilateral this afternoon2 Secy and Amb Dunn congratulated Pinay on efficiency and firmness which French Govt displayed in supressing yesterday’s disorders. Pinay answered that in acting as it did French Govt was not merely seeking to repress hostile demonstrations against Gen [Page 1215] Ridgway3 but to deal with what he considered to be a thoroughly organized program to break up the states internal apparatus of law and order. Yesterday’s affair, said Pinay, much more than manifestation. It was organized throughout France and had many insurrectional characteristics. Disorders occurred in 30 French cities, the most serious being in Paris, Marseilles and Montlucon. PriMin said that his govt had reached the decision to deal with Commie insolence on first appropriate occasion and that yesterday marks initiation policy of action repression of Commies. Pinay made point that restoration of confidence which is his basic platform extends further than financial and economic fields and that confidence must also be restored politically and socially as well.
Pinay told Secy that govt was decided to keep Duclos in jail and to have him tried.4
- Repeated to Moscow.↩
- See the U.S. Delegation Minutes, supra.↩
- Communist-sponsored demonstrations began in Paris on May 23 in protest against the arrival of the new Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, scheduled for May 27. Reports on these demonstrations, which led to the arrests of hundreds of people, are in file 751.001.↩
- On May 28, Jacques Duclos, a leader of the French Communist Party, was arrested and charged with attempts against the safety of the state. Duclos was subsequently released on July 1 when the courts determined that the government had not established proof of his active participation or complicity in the riots in Paris on May 28.↩