1957-06-08 — Page 7

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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1957.

The French cry "Waiter!' and get 'la douloureuse'

...IT MEANS THE BILL WITH

THE STING IN IT... WHICH IS LIFE IN FRANCE TODAY

T

HE French, after a whacking great meal beginning with truffled goose liver and the white wines of Alsace, and travelling gastronomically through the Burgundy country and ending most likely with a little bit of the Cognac region glowing in a balloon glass, have a sad name for the thing that comes at the end of it all.

They often call the waiter to bring "la douloureuse"literally meaning "the sad thing." Sometimes we call it "the damage." And we both mean-the bill.

The elementary summing-up of what is happening in France today is that the French once more don't agree with the total at the end of "la douloureuse," although for 15 months and

20 days they were fairly happy with the meuk being

served up by the waiter and

his chefs-Socialist Prime France Minister Guy Mollet and his Government.

In the one year, three months and 20 days of their service, Mollet and his leaders have won votes of confidence in Parlamenta record survival in postwar France.

34

The deficit

And with

digestion, and pay.

From SYDNEY SMITH: Paris

Committee

hammer on

rejected interests began to £90,000,000 worth of proposed the docts of the Palais Matignon W receipts by the Govern- to tell M. Moilet that his roble ment.

bluff of going it alone *would lead to nowhere but ruin.

It was on that issue that Government was Mollet's thrown out, by what is for the

fairly the

Harrow French margin of 213 votes to 250-on the question of a Budget which would in fact bring in only one- tenth of what is needed to phy for French bankruptcy.

abou!

He says 'No'

MOLLET a stubborn, honest,

rather unimaginglive litle, provincial mayor of Amicus, flatly refused to climb down.

Alterthoughts-the digestion singo-cmong his Sucz sup- porters began to mount but elimb-

t

the

There to never anything

ratical NOW suddenly comes the bill. visibly

the guests' French Government crisis. decision that they have in- is never logical by average Molle argued that

by down don't want to standards certainly not so

40 Nasser would cost Market stendards of purely national

more in lives and loss of face plans. interes!.

in his Algerian struggla shan Like all French · crises, this

This one comes after Socialist could be saved by using Mic оррента

be about

Canal on Nasser'a terms. shown such B Orm something not at all related Mollet has

North kand in directly to the true reason,

Africa-cust £1,000,000 a day-that many of This time, the Government, those who supported the rather heading for the biggest financja naive curly opproaches to the crisis since the thirties, with a terrorists

raised their horror deficit so big

cried that it hardly hands in

and mitters any more-£1,400 "Fascist,"

to

million-is trying to stup the

gop with Anancial reforms and tax increases that involve only

a total of £150 million.

Of £38,000,000 worth of tox increases slone, Parliament's

POCKET CARTOON by OSBERT LANCASTER

"I suppose the Foreign Office have noticed that every time. Aly Khan gets a new girl the French Govern-

ment fulls

have

Brotherly hate

ND the people who threw him out the Communists, the contre Right parties, and the Mondes-France Radicals all hate each other.

to

The powerful Industrial end economic interests of France only saw it in terms of each and they reach far into heart of France's Parliament.

tho

So Suez is one dish on the menu the price of which began to look too high.

North Africa is the bcxt. went with Prime Minister Molle more than a year ago to Algiers. Then he flew in with him 3,000 of the toughest shock police in Francc-not to protect himself from terrorists but from a million engry French retulers who rightly feared a French Secialist climb-down.

and Customs

paste

LA BELLE FRANCE

Union

Cummings

from ALGERIA Having terrible time-Pierre

up and pay "la douloureuse" if And they're saying in not Mollet?

So here we are all the way Presidente-has now to find al around the circle. Who is able new waiter to present the old to persuade the French to pick bill.

Paris last he Ands many Anke "Ja

that if at name ho

They realise the potentialities of the Empire's industrial pro- duction. They consider Britain

President Coly, a tired and a is doing a sharp deal and they and marr since he lost his de- dauloineuse! with him and ask have revised their whole viewʊ ightful wife. Madame la the Americans to chip in of the European plan.

They have revised them too after realising that they BAC opening the way to a crushing German competition,

The circle

NATO is en the bill too--and

whatever is sald from the top la France no one can pretend that the French Man-in-the- Bistro is happy about his new German allie-nor the price of the alliance.

All Parts knows as usual that whatever rocky Government may be ditched together succeed him it will have to

Mollet began to understand

He curry out practically the same the altuation.

switched

While the blits for each new even more forces frem Nato to North dish-Suez, North Africa, Nato programme, or one desperate.

Africa.

That last him at least commitments, and the Common Communist abstention from Market--begin to look too high, awkward votes, and brought the act only to that Man-in-the- Mendes-France Radicals in his Bistro but the Mon-in-the- cost ot. living, Government to a state of revolt. Bordroom,

mainly thanks to Algeria, tas steadily climbed beyond wage adjustments.

Could anything avem illogical than all that?

more

This is how subtly, almost imperceptibly the change has come about.

Suez once and for a long time was for the French a splendid and noble gesture. In the last 20 days, with Britain's climb- down to Nasser, which hurt them most, they have begun to Tealise that continued noble solitudo would be terribly cxpensive.

A shaking

his

measures

A be departies,

Who can succeed Mollet? AND

must £1,000,000-a-day new majority

in found

408 among 42 strong-arm Algeria have only created more excluding the 100 Commiste and better and tho half hundred terorists-bigger

Foujadists. But Mollet holds ambushes-and financial strain,

over 100 votes in Trouble, too,

goes Morocco and Tunisia.

on:

Parliament,

anxi no

succted trim one cath without Sociallet support doe COMTS

just just the same programme-Just Was due to put the same bill which the French

It is just two weeks ago that Mollet's defeat deputations from industry led before he

by

Vast shipping sand ou through the European Common have refused to pay.

ALGERIAN WAR

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