FRANCE AS SHE IS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1938, Page 5

FRANCE AS SHE IS

DIARY OF AN ONLOOKER POLITICS & PROVINCES. KEEN INTEREST EVERYWHERE. Almost the whole point of my excursions deep into the countryside far from Paris was to get away from politics, write Mallory Browne from Paris in the “Christian Science Monitor.” I wanted to leave for a time the Chamber of Deputies and the Quai d’Orsay, the sensational newspapers of the capital and its constant conversations about political events, and delve into the peaceful atmosphere of the provinces, where one talks of crops and the weather over the counter of the village store. Naturally I had been in most of the regions of France before. But this time I devoted myself to getting acquainted exclusively with the man in the street —or in the fields; to meeting and talking to as many Frenchmen and Frenchwomen of all walks of life as possible. I To my surprise, I found that the provinces, far from offering an escape 'from the intense political activity of Paris, were fairly buzzing with preoccupation over the political and social problems of the day. On the surface, the sleepy calm and indifference of the little villages and towns is complete, and there is an emptiness about the countryside in most sections of France that is almost disconcerting. But just begin to talk to someone —anyone —and the illusion of inactivity and absence of interest in politics is rudely dispelled. My trouble was not in getting people to talk, but to get them to talk about anything but politics! In a way, my provincial rambles recalled a trip back to the United States last year, after an absence of nearly six years. I was not surprised to find that, in Washington, New York, and even Boston, everyone was talking politics —although that was quite a change from the situation six years before. But what did astonish me was that out in the Middle West I found the same intense and widespread interest in the political, social and economic problems facing America. x The same phenomenon is to be encountered in provincial France today: in the rich farm lands along the Loire, France’s “Middle West”; in Brittany, where the picturesque little fishing ports recall the rocky coast of New England; on the Riviera, France’s equivalent of California or Florida; and in the industrial districts of the North and East, French equivalent , of Pennsylvania. A dozen years ago M. Andre Siegfried, excellent analyist of the French scene, was able to write: “Politics is the amusement of the French people it is not a vital part of their daily life.” Today this is at least less true than it was then, even in the provinces. Without exaggeration, one can say that the majority of Frenchmen now feel that politics, far from being an amusing game, has come to affect their daily lives so intimately and constantly that it can no longer be ignored, or even bothered about at election time only.

When last'l was in America someone said'td me: “You must admit one thing about President Roosevelt’s New Deal: you-may like it or you may not like it, but you cannot ignore it!” The same thing is true in France about M. Leon Blum and the Popular Front. It has made politics a burning question throughout the most distant corners of the country. As in America, opinion is, of course, sharply divided, and along similar lines. That is to say, the Popular Front is in general bitterly opposed by the wealthier classes and ardently supported by the masses, particularly the industrial workers. But viewing the political picture in the French provinces more closely, one sees a significant variety’ of dissident opinion. The farmers?" the artisans, the little shopkeepers—three very numerous and influential classes—and even many of the industrial workers and a few of the big industrialists have views of their own about the situation. Although not coinciding exactly, their outlooks seem to me to form a single important current of French political thought. Briefly summarised and reduced to its bare essentials, this trend may, in my opinion, be defined as a tendency toward a new French regime based on more direct representation of the various metiers —professions or corporations. There is a widespread sentiment that a French form of corporativism ought to be evolved, giving the farmers, for instance, greater authority over their own affairs, and the merchants the same. The nation as a whole, ought to be administered as a business, along strictly business lines, by business men and not by politicians who are, for the most part, lawyers and professors. That is the dominant impressions 1 brought back from my trips through the provinces of France. Even more,

perhaps, than Paris, the provinces are in a state of ferment. The leaven of social, economic and political change is at work, quietly but ceaselessly, in the thought of the French people. The tremendous significance of this fact is clear. Out of it may emerge a new concept of democracy better equipped to meet the challenge of modern times. But the period of transition is sure to be a perilous one. Every ounce of reason and reasonableness, every pound of moral stamina the French people possess, will be required to guide the nation safely through its difficulties to the brighter shores beyond.