M. Schuman is French Counterpart Of Sir Stafford Cripps

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26634, 3 December 1947, Page 5

M. Schuman is French Counterpart Of Sir Stafford Cripps

Daily Times Special Correspondent LONDON, Nov. 24. Sixth Prime Minister of France since the liberation, M. Robert Schuman is the French counterpart of Sir Stafford Cripps. This little-known statesman, who has been called to take over power at the height of his country's economic crisis, is a 61-year-old lawyer from Metz, in Lorraine. He is rated as an expert on finance and local administration. Like Britain’s new Chancellor, Sir Stafford Cripps. M. Schuman believes that unremitting austerity is the way back to prosperity. He wants to “ increase production ’’—Britain’s great present-day war cry—to declare war on rising prices and inflation, while still remaining fair to private enterprise, and to accept American economic aid “ without strings.” '

He is expected to cut public expenditure, oppose wage increases, and abolish subsidies.

His party is the M.R.P. (Progressive Catholics), which grew out of various resistance movements. He is devout and ascetic, and neither drinks nor smokes. He takes almost all his meals in the Assembly canteen, often sleeps on a camp bed in the Ministry of Finance, and is urfmarried. His “ home ” is a frugally furnished bachelor room.

In 1926 M. Schuman was a close collaborator of M. Poincare, the man who “saved the franc” in that year. After the First World War he entered Parliament as deputy for. the Moselle,

but remained almost unknown until 1940. when he was made Minister for Refugees. He continued in that office for four weeks after Marshal Petain had set up his Government. But the Gestapo decided he was dangerous. He had practised law in Metz while it was still German (it returned to France only after the First World War). Therefore, he knew too much about Germany. In September, 1940, M. Schuman Was arrested at Gestapo orders, and placed in solitary confinement. He escaped from Neustadt in 1942 with the aid of the underground organisation. Bearing forged papers, he got first across the Vosges frontier, then over the demarcation line into Vichy France. But he had to flee again, and soon emerged as a leader of the French resistance—hiding in Alsace under the very nose of the Gestapo. After the liberation he was again returned to the Assembly for his old constituency, and in June', 1946, he became Finance Minister in M. Bidault’s Cabinet. He secured the same post in M. Ramadier’s Cabinet last January. And now “ this man no one had ever heard of” is to save the franc and try to walk the precarious tight rope between Right and Left as the “ Premier of France. M Robert Schuman is sometimes confused with M. Maurice Schumann, who has two “n’s” in his name. This Schumann, who is also one of the leaders of the Catholic Party, was spokesman for General /de Gaulle on the French service of the 8.8. C.