Evening star., 1948-02-29
France Faces Critical Three sMonths
Bright if She
Can Hold on Until
the New Crop
Nv Rlo;r Moody
By Bloir Moody

PARIS.-France is passing through
crisis which could burst any day
now into serious disruption, in
ternal fighting. even civil war. But
if it safely weathers this tense. ex-
plosiye spring, its outlook for the
future appears excellent.
June is the deadline. BY June the
new crop will be coming in and, IN
drastic contrast to last year. 1t is
expected to be bumper. Then France
will have plenty of food. Prices will
drop and the ISSUES now stirring the
country, real and agitated, will fade.
That is the estimate Of Rene Mayer,
Minister Of Finance and strong man
Of the Third Force" government.
Reds Bide Their Time
But it is a long time until June.
when nearly every hour in turbulent
French politics brings a new cause
celebre" and it is perfectly clear
that the Communists, acting under
Moscow orders, are merely waiting
for the moment when they can aim
the most destructive blow possible
to French recovery.
The overwhelming political issue
of the winter is high prices. Ine
drought of 1s47, worst since they
started keeping records in 1880. has
drained food stocks low. The i'm
port of wheat from the United
States keeps the bread ration at
200 grams per day, roughly two or
three slices in q bread-eating ma
ton, and it has not been enough.
The competition for substitutes has
driven the price of vegetables, meat
and other items sharply up, which
should have familiar ring In the
United States.
The Schuman cabinet, acting
chiefly through Mayer, has shown
great political courage in installing
unpopular measures in an effort to
brake the imitation. 1t is debating
the money in circulation as a sort
of crude way of cutting prices
through inability Of consumers to
bid them up. 1t recently requisi-
toned all livestock at the markets
to fix the prices of meat, and exer-
cises a further check by forcing food
retailers to show on a double ticket
not only the retail, but the whole
sale price.
The cabinet got chamber of depu-
ties support on very rough meas
ure to curb retail profiteering, they
fixed prices as of January and pro-
vided heavy penalties for violation.
They ais oset up systenN inventory
controls giving the government
ready weapon against hoarders.
Made the Farmers Jittery
But one of the Mayer measures
has backfired-the calling in of all
S 5,0O0-franc notes, now in process of
being returned to their owners by
From the standpoint of
debating money, preventing a rush
from paper francs to gold in the
newly established free market"
and uncovering tax evaders and
black marketeers, this was unques-
tionably an excellent move. From
the standpoint Of the ticking polit-
ical time bomb of the hour, prices,
it was not so good.
1t made the French. especially
the French farmers, jittery about
their money. They had been doubt
full enough before; one reason it
had been so difficult to get the
peasants to ship their full crops to
market. Now the farmers who have
not been able to get shoes, tractors
and the other real goods they
wanted saw even their readily hoard
able 5000 franc notes drawn into
question. One village Of 1000 farm
ers (Milesse in Brittany impelled
by the warning that the notes
would be worthless after certain