LEON BLUM WILL LEAD UNESCO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 389, 6 December 1946, Page 12

LEON BLUM WILL LEAD UNESCO

Genre of his political life, Leon Blum said in 1924; "For 30 years I have done precisely the thing for which I was least fitted. What I really love is solitude and books." The other day Blum was appointed permanent president of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). It will not gain him solitude, but for this work his intellectual record at least suggests that he is admirably fitted.

OR the second time in the space of a decade Leon Blum has been elected to a key position in world affairs. Though it may seem more like a generation, it is just 10 years since he became the first socialist prime minister of France,* and (outside of Republican

Spain) the first national leader of a Popular Front -that amorphous coalition with which the Left first sought to meet the threat of totalitarianism. As permanent president of UNESCO, Blum brings to the problems of international scholarship and culture a mind which is both cultivated and international, and an administrative ability which (10 years ago) kept him in office for 13 months, compared with the eight months which was the average for . administration under the Third Republic. To have kept office for more than a year would have been achievement enough, but Blum did it in a France still ringing with the reverberations of the Stavisky scandal, and convulsed by industrial unrest; with Spain burning. on her southern frontier and Hitler thundering back into the Rhineland. Yet the man who held France together in these

critical days+-the man indeed who, more than any other, stood in the very epicentre of events — was an intellectual first, and a politician only from a sense of duty. Brilliant Scholar . Leon Blum, who is now 74, is a Parisian’ and a Jew (there. is. irony in the reflection that ‘he owes his new eminence in international affairs to the Nazis), and from his youth ‘he has attracted the attention of ‘his’ contemporaries. He réceived a first-class education, even by exacting French standards. At the Lycée Henri IV. he studied philosophy under Bergson, -and. from there went to the Ecole Normale. Supérieure, the most exclusive of French schools, to which only outstanding pupils are admitted. Later he ~-graduated in both philosophy and law, and for many years confined his energies to law and litera- | ture. Not that he lacked interest in politics, which had been, from his boyhood, a

part of his everyday life. His mother, to whom he was devoted, was an intellectual with definite opinions on justice, social and otherwise, and his maternal grandmother also held profound radical convictions. But though familiar with current political thought, Blum himself did not take an active part in politics until the outbreak of the first World Wer.

In the meantime he gained valuable experience of government in the legal branch of the French civil service, in which he rose to the position of Maitre de Requétes in the Conseil d’Etat, a position corresponding roughly to that of solicitor-general. But that involved only a fraction of his tremendous energies. He was at the same time deeply committed in literature and journalism. His friends at this time were a brilliant company. Anatole France was one, Mallarmé the symbolist and his disciple André Gide were others; Proust and the Guitrys were among his familiars. It was at this time that he became dramatic critic of Le Matin, later filling the same position on the staff of Comoedia, which in France occupied the position held by Variety in the United States (but with © a little more literary distinction). Simultaneously he produced an armful of books-critical essays on Stendhal, Eckermann, on the problems of peace and (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) of government reform, on the theatre, and one (Du Mariage) on more personal human relations, which is still remembered against him in some conservative quarters for the views on equality of the sexes which he expressed in it. The Dreyfus Case The Dreyfus case, which divided France into two camps between 1897 and 1906, dragged Blum from the quiet salons into the turmoil of the streets. ‘He became a Dreyfusard. At the same time he came under the influence of Jaurés, orator and architect of modern French. socialism-and, through Jaurés, under the influence of Marx. In 1906 Blum and Jaurés founded L’Humanité as a daily socialist newspaper. It may be noted at this point that in a country where, until the days of the Resistance, the venality of the Press was taken for granted, L’Humanité (latterly. communist) and the royalist. Action Francaise were in the opinion of competent observers, the only two papers which could be called honest by our standards. : Assassination of Jaures Working together’ Blum and Jaurés wrote and spoke for socialism until 1914. In that year Jaurés was assassinated, just before the outbreak of war. A month later Blum entered political life, more as a gesture to the memory of his friend than from personal inclination, The,same year he became chef du cabinet to the Coalition Minister’ of Public Works and in 1919 was elected as one of the deputies for’ Paris. From that time onward. his infuence as leader of the socialists in the Cham-. ber grew steadily, and long before he actually became premier he held. a commanding position, But he would not. accept office other than on his: terms,. and the only administrative experience he had had when he took over in 1936 was that gained in the early Stages of the 1914-18 war. ' Forty-Hour Week Whatever France may have thought of Blum before, once he gained power he did not leave room for doubt about his ability as an administrator. With an almost breathless speed he set about the business of reform, His first measures established a 40-hour week in industry, guaranteed labour the right to collective bargaining, to a minimum wage, and to holidays with pay. The school leaving age was raised, wages and salary cuts made by Laval were partially restored, pensions were reorganised and the administration of the Bank of France was reformed. Six months later Blum devalued the franc and for a time France took the depreciation of her currency fairly well, But in July, 1937, following a complicated crisis, the financial situation deteriorated, and (following a defeat in the Senate) Blum resigned. The new government was still of the Popular Front and Blum remained as vicepremier under Chautemps, but except for a brief two months (March-April, 1938) he did not again lead the Government. Right up to the fall of France in

1940, however, he was a dominant figure in French politics. It was rumoured after the fall of ‘France that he had left the countryhis last public appearance had been at Vichy on July 12, when he voted against the Petain dictatorship — but on September 15 of the same year he joined Daladier. and Reynaud in "administrative custody." With other leaders of the Popular Front he was put on trial at Riom by the Vichy administration in an attempt to discredit the democratic institutions of the Third Republic. Later he was held prisoner by: the Nazis in Germany, and did not return to the French scene until May, 1945.