Domestic Policy

Question: Can you tell us, General, what the situation is concerning the income policy, and what the Government intends to do to accelerate its implementation?

Answer: Under the impetus of the machine, the modern economy is in perpetual motion. This is true of its structure, since certain branches are created at a rapid pace, support one another and make progress, while others regress or disappear, and thus the distribution of efforts, capital and people is continually being renewed. This is true of the country's total productive activity. This is true of how individuals use their own incomes, whether they consume, save or invest in business, housing or equipment. This is true of what the State levies on the country's productive activity through taxes, of what it borrows, of what it earmarks its resources for. Yet, the connections between foreign countries are such that what happens abroad inevitably influences what goes on at home. And what is to be said of the wars or the catastrophes that exhaust the human and material means of production in certain countries, while they offer other countries a sudden opportunity to increase theirs? In short, it is the very nature of our mechanized civilization that the aggregate profits accruing from advances in science, technology, productive capacity, or from progress in structural frameworks, machinery and trade, are essentially variable in their total and in their distribution.

Doubtless, the growth rate-- thanks to the means our era is employing-- has a general tendency to increase rather than to decrease, because new results are added to those which have already been achieved. But this advancement is itself exposed to many vicissitudes. Sometimes rapid and sometimes slow, at times carried away by "overheating" or halted by crisis, excessive in various branches and insufficient in others, it entails all kinds of fits and starts and inequalities, unfair profits and unwarranted setbacks. Hence, many subjects of dispute and difficulties in the material, social, political and moral life of societies. The states are therefore increasingly inclined to frame and to guide their national economies.

Before deciding on them, they can theoretically see before them two contradictory doctrines, one of which is simple and terrible. The "laissez-faire, laissez-passer" applied to economics since the dawn of the machine age has often, thanks to profit, the spirit of enterprise and free competition, given a powerful impetus to development. But it has unmistakably resulted in violent shocks and an enormous amount of injustice. On the

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other hand, the communist system, enforced in certain countries in which national disasters had swept away their structures and which, although endowed with great natural resources, vegetated under selfish and archaic methods, has succeeded, by using implacable constraint and frenzied propaganda, in building a massive productive apparatus, particularly in mining and heavy industry. But this is at the cost of vast ordeals, enormous waste and the crushing of individuals, who are left neither their choice nor their freedom. Furthermore, those activities which call for spontaneous effort by the people and adjustment to manifold and changing demands, such as the manufacture of consumer goods, farming, distribution channels, are, under such a regime, constantly inadequate for want of rewarding initiative. The result, apart from compulsory and spectacular mass gatherings and movements, is a life which is ceaselessly threatened, or at least, tedious, colorless and without flavor.

It was possible to believe once, and there are still those who sometimes believe, that these excessive systems find a wide audience in our country and that it is conceivable that one or another might one day impose itself on the State and on the nation. These are only figments of the imagination. Undoubtedly, it suits the traditional adherents of a theory formerly approved to extoll the illusion of an economy without rules. Undoubtedly, on the contrary, it appears expedient to the champions of subversion to evoke the song of tomorrow which would lull to sleep a society divested of profit and of competition. But everyone knows that, barring a cataclysm which would put everything in question again, we will no longer deliver ourselves to the unbridled discretion of liberal capitalism, and no one believes that we will ever submit to the crushing tyranny of totalitarian communism. No, the path that we have chosen is neither the former nor the latter.

We have made the choice of driving, yes, of driving our effort and our progress toward the greatest yields, the greatest continuity, the greatest justice. Which means that, while giving free rein to the individual and collective spirit of enterprise which involves the risk of gain or loss, we are applying public action to guide our economy, to advance the nation in all domains and to improve the lot of the French people in proportion to the increase in France's wealth. To do this, our framework is the Plan, through which we determine the goals to reach, the stages, the conditions. Our means are laws, regulations, information, as well as credit, taxes, tariffs, subsidies. Our policy is an action which progressively adapts the national income to the needs and advances of the whole nation, of each of its economic branches and of each of its social categories.

The income policy--Monsieur Jourdain was using "prose" without knowing it. It has been a long time since, without saying so, we began to implement the income policy. We were already doing so when, more than half a century ago, we adopted the graduated income tax; when, at the time of the Liberation, we set up the social security system, family allowances,

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the minimum guaranteed wage. We are doing so right now when we implement the agricultural orientation laws; when, by taxing the gains of the nation, we give massive assistance to research, education, health, agriculture; when each year we build houses by the hundreds of thousands; when we develop the territory's infrastructure as a whole or by region; when we raise, in proportion to the growth of the national product, the salaries for State civil servants and public service employees. But there is no stopping in our era. Each day that passes makes it more necessary to push further ahead along the path we have chosen.

First of all, according to our goals for collective development, the increased national income must be distributed among consumption, investments, government operating expenses, the country's equipment, settlement of domestic and foreign debts, foreign aid and so on, in order that the nation's income be distributed as rationally as possible among the various sectors which determine both its present life and its future progress. It is also necessary, of course, that the expected increase in the total wealth--the rate of expansion, in other words--be determined in accordance with our resources, our needs, our own development and the development of those States with which we are the most closely linked. It is equally necessary that the total resources thus distributed do not exceed what the country has earned, otherwise there would be inflation, which means, sooner or later, bankruptcy.

But it is also necessary that this "programing," which is expressed in percentages, increase its social significance by applying to the totals of various kinds of income: industrial and commercial profits, wages and salaries, farm incomes, earnings from services, and social benefits, with the respective increases henceforth being calculated in real value. Of course, parity in progress is impossible because the facts relevant to the different cases are never identical. Indeed, this kind of parity is undesirable because it would be disastrous to suppress emulation. But, on pain of imbalance, it is at least important that all categories advance at the same time as the whole in order that each one have its share. This basic harmony that the plan must provide is all the more necessary since the French economy is henceforth developing on the basis of stability, and since in so doing we have eliminated the dangerously easy terms which inflation was offering in order to compensate artificially and temporarily for setbacks and disparities, until that day when everyone would have been engulfed in the same abyss.

It is true that, at first sight, such a policy is apt to antagonize, on the one hand, various groups which are completely absorbed by their own affairs and interests and which distrust government intervention in the working of the economy on principle, and on the other hand, certain occupational organizations accustomed to concentrating their action on claims and which fear, in this form, the reduction of their role as the country's economic and social life would be made more regular, less

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disparate and consequently more equitable. But the income policy corresponds too profoundly to the trend of our epoch not to belong to everyone. Besides, if it is up to the powers of the Republic, the Government and Parliament, to decide what it is, the opinions and discussions from which it will be elaborated imply the cooperation of the elements responsible for the areas of production, labor and technology. The Planning Commissions, the Economic and Social Council, the Economic Development Commissions created recently in the Regions provide, through their respective attributes, the appropriate frameworks for these consultations.

In the midst of the immense dislocations which have taken place or are going on from one end of the earth to the other since the machine has begun to change society, France has now decided upon the ways and means for her own transformation. Of course, we know that we still have far to go, for there are no limits to progress. But, in France, the revolution goes on regularly, day after day, because it is accepted by the public and inscribed in law.

After the explanations which have been given many times on this vital subject by the Government, and in the first place by the Premier and by the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, and which were precisely formulated by the Commissioner General for Planning, I hope that I have answered your questions.

## The International Monetary System

**Question:** Mr. President, by converting a portion of its dollar holdings into gold, France has elicited certain reactions which have brought out the defects in the present monetary system. Do you advocate a reform in this system, and if so, how?

**Question:** My question, Mr. President, fits in with the preceding one. Can you specify your policy on foreign investments in France, and especially on American investments?

**Answer:** I shall try to explain my thoughts on these points.

As the Western European States, destroyed and ruined by the wars, recover their substance, their relative situation following their debilitation appears inadequate, even abusive and dangerous. Moreover, nothing in this statement implies that they, particularly France, are in any way unfriendly toward other countries, especially toward America. For the fact that these States wish, more each day, to act independently in every field of international relations is due merely to the nature of things. This is true of the monetary relations which have been practised in the world since the ordeals undergone by Europe made it lose its equilibrium. I refer — is this not clear? — to the system which appeared following the first World War and which was established after the second.

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We know that, starting with the Genoa Conference in 1922, this sys-
tem had given two currencies, the pound and the dollar, the privilege of
being held automatically as gold equivalents for all foreign payments, while
the others were not. Later on, since the pound had been devalued in 1931
and the dollar in 1933, this extraordinary advantage could have seemed to
be compromised. But America surmounted its great crisis. After that, the
Second World War ruined the currencies in Europe by unleashing inflation
there. As nearly all the world gold reserves were then held by the United
States which, as the world supplier, had been able to maintain the value of
its own currency, it could seem natural for other States to include dollars
or gold without distinction in their exchange reserves and for foreign
balances of payments to be settled by transfers of American credits or
currencies as well as gold. All the more so because America experienced
no difficulty in settling its debts in gold if it was asked to do so. This inter-
national monetary system, this "gold exchange standard," has consequently
been accepted in practice since that time.

However, today it no longer seems to conform to reality, and it
suddenly presents disadvantages which are increasingly encumbering it.
Since the problem can be considered in the desired conditions of calm and
objectivity — for there is nothing urgent or alarming about the present
situation — this is the time to do so.

The conditions which formerly were able to give rise to the "gold
exchange standard" have changed. The currencies of the Western European
States are today restored, to the extent that the total gold reserves of the
Six today equal those of the Americans. They would even exceed them if the
Six decided to convert all their dollar holdings into gold. This means that
the custom of ascribing a superior value to the dollar as an international
currency no longer rests on its initial foundation — I mean America's pos-
session of the largest share of the world's gold. But, in addition, the fact
that many States in principle accept dollars on the same basis as gold so
as to offset, if need be, the deficits in their favor in the American balance
of payments, leads the United States to indebt itself abroad at no cost.
Indeed, what it owes abroad, it pays for, at least partially, with dollars
which it alone can issue, instead of paying entirely with gold, which has a
real value, which must be earned to be possessed, and which cannot be
transferred to others without risks and sacrifice. This unilateral facility
which is granted to America is serving to cloud the idea that the dollar is
an impartial and international medium of exchange, when it is a means of
credit belonging to one State.

Obviously, this situation has other consequences, particularly the
fact that the United States — since it is not required, at least entirely, to
settle its payments deficits in gold according to the former rule which re-
quired States to take the measures, sometimes severe ones, necessary to
correct their imbalances — suffered a deficit each year. Not because its
total commercial exchanges were unfavorable, quite the contrary. Its

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exports of goods always exceed its imports. But this is also the case for
dollars, for which outflows always exceed inflows. In other words, capital
was created in America, by means of what must be called inflation, which
in the form of dollar loans granted to States or to individuals, is exported
outside. As, even in the United States, the increase in fiduciary currency
which results as a side effect makes investments at home less profitable,
there is a growing tendency in the United States to invest abroad. The re-
sult for certain countries is a sort of expropriation of some of their busi-
ness firms.

Assuredly, such a practice has greatly facilitated, and further en-
courages to some extent, the manifold and substantial aid that the United
States furnishes to numerous countries for their development, and from
which we ourselves once benefited in large measure. But circumstances
are such today that it is possible to wonder how far the difficulties would
go if the States which hold dollars sooner or later reached the point where
they wanted to convert them into gold. Even if such a widespread move-
ment would never occur, the fact is that there is to a certain extent a
fundamental imbalance.

For all these reasons, France recommends that the system be
changed; we know that she did so, notably during the monetary conference
in Tokyo. Given the world-wide upset that a crisis occurring in this domain
would probably cause, we have, indeed, every reason to hope that in time
the means for avoiding it will be taken. Therefore, we consider that inter-
national exchanges must be established, as was the case before the great
world-wide disasters, on an unquestionable monetary basis which does not
bear the mark of any individual country.

What basis? Actually, it is difficult to envision in this regard any
other criterion, any other standard than gold. Yes, gold, which does not
change in nature, which can be made either into bars, ingots or coins,
which has no nationality, which is considered, in all places and at all times,
the immutable and fiduciary value par excellence. Furthermore, despite all
that it was possible to imagine, say, write or do in the midst of major
events, it is a fact that even today no currency has any value except by
direct or indirect relation to gold, real or supposed. Doubtless, no one
would think of dictating to any country how to manage its domestic affairs.
But the supreme law, the golden rule — and indeed it is pertinent to say
it — that must be enforced and honored again in international economic re-
lations, is the duty to balance, from one monetary area to another, by
effective inflows and outflows of gold, the balance of payments resulting
from their exchanges.

Certainly, the termination of the gold exchange standard without
rude jolts, the reinstitution of the gold standard, the supplementary and
transitional measures which could be indispensable, particularly for or-
ganizing international credit on this new basis, will have to be deliberately

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concerted among the States, especially those whose economic and financial capability gives them special responsibilities. Moreover, the frameworks already exist in which such studies and negotiations would normally be carried out. The International Monetary Fund, set up to guarantee, as much as it is possible, currency solidarity, would offer all States an appropriate meeting ground once it was no longer a matter of perpetuating the gold exchange standard, but of replacing it. The Group of Ten, which includes, alongside the United States and Great Britain, on the one hand France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium, and on the other Japan, Sweden and Canada, would prepare the necessary proposals. Lastly, it would be up to the six States, which seem to be on the way toward achieving a European Economic Community, to formulate between them and to advocate outside the solid system which common sense recommends and which is in keeping with the reappearing power of our old continent.

France, for her part, is ready to take an active share in the vast reform henceforth imposed in the interest of the entire world.

## The United Nations

**Question:** Mr. President, in view of the gravity of the United Nations crisis, what is your opinion on this crisis and what measures do you recommend for solving it?

**Answer:** I am going to go back rather far, for the idea of the United Nations is an old one. It emerged, of course, from the war. "War gives birth to everything," said the ancient Greeks. From the first World War came the League of Nations, which France, Great Britain, the United States and their allies decided to establish in the hope that the combined action of peace-loving nations would prevent a repetition of the catastrophe. Subsequently, it is true, America abstained from taking part. But, so long as the factors of the world situation remained as they had been fixed by the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations was able to exist and function by extolling its own ideals, especially when it concerned the theoretical condemnation of war.

However, the world was to see that, men being men and nations being nations, it had set its sights too high. As imperialist Japan, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy attacked the established order, and as the necessity appeared not only to speak, but to act against them, the League of Nations showed its impotence. Indeed, the conjunction of so many calculations, reservations, fears and diverse interests could not result in action, that is to say, in determination, commitment and risk. The second global conflict caused the bankruptcy of the Geneva institution, while its principal members, divided into two camps, came to blows.

However, even before the guns were silenced, the idea again appeared of offering nations a framework in which they could be equally represented, discuss world problems, establish a consensus of peoples on

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them, repudiate the warlike intentions of the ambitious, centralize information on each country's material, social and moral position, and set in motion collective efforts toward their development. I had the honor, with Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and Chiang Kai-Chek, of drawing up the draft Charter which was adopted by fifty-one nations in San Francisco.

We know that, by virtue of that constitution, the United Nations was composed firstly of a Council charged with watching over international security and able to mobilize the means desired to make it respected, and secondly of an Assembly whose debates would result in recommendations, with the right to take action belonging, nevertheless, to the Council alone. Among the eleven members of the latter were five permanent members, that is, the five victorious powers, each one having the veto power. An Economic and Social Council and a Court of Justice were added to these two great bodies. A Secretary General was to ensure the practical functioning of the Organization. In addition, the Charter provided that the United Nations should not intervene in the internal affairs of a State.

This Charter was reasonable. It resulted in the normal and continuous meeting and confrontation within the Assembly of almost all the world's nations in a kind of forum from which international public opinion could emerge and which, by virtue of the equality of all its members, conferred upon each of them, especially those which had just acquired sovereignty and independence, a highly esteemed dignity. Within the Council, moreover, five powers whose policies, economy, armed forces and influence gave them world-wide responsibilities, were brought to meet, and if possible to collaborate, in maintaining the peace. These arrangements thus corresponded to what was both possible and prudent; they undoubtedly did not establish a world government and a world parliament, which in this century could exist only in dreams. But, given the realities, and especially the rivalry between Soviet Russia and the United States which was spreading over the whole world among an increasing number of nations, it was a wise idea that the Organization gave itself the conditions for balance and impartiality, rather than aspiring to impose the impossible.

We all know what happened. Under the pressure of events in Korea, Suez and Hungary, and of the Soviets' excessive use of the veto, the so-called "united" nations, which were so no more, permitted themselves to exceed their nature and their possibilities. Failing to recognize the competence of the Security Council, they deviated from their Charter. In 1950 the General Assembly arrogated to itself the right to decide on the use of force, which made it the scene of quarrels between the two rivals. Through the disorder thus created, the then Secretary General was led to set himself up as a superior and excessive authority. Continuing these abuses, the Organization involved itself directly in the internal affairs of the Congo, sent there at great cost military troops furnished by States that were too often interested--which State is not?--and political, administrative and economic missions which, in fact, corresponded to the intentions of one

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great power. To be sure, this intervention has ceased thanks to the wisdom of the present Secretary General, and because of the expenditures-- which France, let it be said in passing, could not for her part assume, since she has never ceased to disapprove of an unjustified undertaking and a procedure contrary to the San Francisco Treaty. But the profound transformation which the United Nations has undergone because of such distortions in legality clearly compromise its unity, its prestige and its functioning. Hence the present crisis into which it is plunged.

I will say frankly that, in my opinion, it is by returning to prudence and to the Charter that the United Nations can regain its equilibrium. In the present circumstances, it is clearly necessary for Washington, Moscow, London, Peking and Paris to agree to return to the point of departure, as they agreed to once in order to establish the United Nations. France, for her part, is ready to contribute to such an agreement by the five, and she feels that Geneva would be the obvious place for such negotiations, or, moreover, for any others which you are thinking of. Indeed, how desirable we regard the salvation of an institution in which the world has put so much hope for furthering the solidarity and progress of all mankind.

## The German Problem

**Question:** How do you see France's relations with the Soviet Union in 1965, especially from the angle of the problem of Germany's reunification? Also, how do you see France's relations with the various types of communist countries in Europe and Asia?

**Question:** What path do you consider best, in the present international situation, for achieving Germany's reunification? What in your view are the real chances of effectively and fairly solving this problem?

**Question:** Regarding the German question, do you prefer a direct confrontation with Moscow in the context of a permanent conference of the victorious powers of the second World War, or a European dialogue with the Eastern European countries, including Russia?

**Answer:** During the conversations which I had the honor and satisfaction of having at Rambouillet two weeks ago with Chancellor Erhard, and which enabled us to establish confident and friendly contact between us, the problem of Germany was, of course, considered. I will not tell you what was explicitly advanced by both sides on that very serious subject. But I can give you some indications of France's overall views, insofar as they have not already been formulated.

The German problem is, indeed, the European problem. European, you can guess, since the time of the Roman Empire, that is, when historic

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Europe ceased to confine itself to the Mediterranean basin and moved toward the Rhine. European, because of the location of the Germans in the center of our continent, between Gauls, Latins and Slavs. European, because a long and difficult history filled it with ferment and burdened it with sequels which left cruel rancor and manifold prejudices among all the neighbors of that country constantly in the making. European, because the German people are a great people, through both economic activity, as in the realm of philosophy, science and art, or in the area of military capacity, and because Europe sees in them a vital part of itself. European, lastly, because Germany has always felt an anguish, and at times a fury, created by its own uncertainty about its boundaries, its unity, its political system, its international role, so that the more its destiny remains undetermined, the more disturbing it always appears to the whole continent.

Is it necessary to say that the events which have occurred during the first half of this century have made this problem more disturbing and burning than ever? Already, because of the German Empire, the first World War had caused a gigantic shock in the west, east, north and south of Europe. But then the Third Reich's immense effort to dominate; its armies' invasion on one side as far as the Channel, the Atlantic, the Pyrenees, the Adriatic and the two shores of the Mediterranean, on the other as far as the Arctic, the approaches to Moscow, the heart of the Caucasus, the Black Sea, the Aegean; the action of its submarines on all the oceans of the globe; its tyranny established over twelve European States, its hegemony over four others; the violent death of forty million men, military and civilian, as a result of its acts, particularly the systematic extermination of ten million prisoners--all that inflicted terrible wounds on the body and soul of the peoples.

Doubtless, the final crushing of the Third Reich put an end to the ordeal. Doubtless, the subordination imposed on the vanquished--demolished and desimated--the accomplished facts in the territories which were once East Prussia, Posnania and Silesia, the end of the Austrian Anschluss and of the "protectorate" over Czechoslovakia, the country's organic partition through the creation of zones and the Berlin statute, had first made the direct fears which Germany had for so long inspired recede. Doubtless, the reasonable and skillful policy adopted by Chancellor Adenauer's Government reassured many minds in the West. But the tragedy nonetheless left very deep scars. In short, it was with circumspection, indeed, even with some uneasiness, that public opinion in Western Europe sometimes viewed the economic expansion, military rebirth and political recovery of the Federal Republic, while the Sovietized regimes in eastern Europe made use of the peoples' instinctive distrust of the Germans to justify the cold war against the free world, inveigled, so to speak, by the "German revengers."

The problem has thus arisen once again in history. For France, everything can be reduced to three closely linked questions: to see that Germany henceforth becomes a definite element of progress and peace; on this condition, to help with its reunification; to make a start and select the framework which would make this possible.

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It is true that, up to now, the issue has not always been considered
in this light. Following the last World War, with the memory of the ordeals
suffered and risks run by the peoples of the Old Continent, many sides en-
visaged preventing the return of such misfortunes by eliminating what had
been the cause, that is, the German might. Hence the projects aimed at for-
bidding the reconstitution of a central government, at placing the Ruhr under
international control and at keeping Germany disarmed. You know that
France was at first inclined, and for good reason, toward this concept. But
the fact that the confrontation of the free world and the Soviet world became
the major affair, and that Germany was one of its stakes, modified our
outlook. Moreover, because in the depths of their misfortune our neighbors
across the Rhine no longer seemed threatening, many were feeling, and
despite everything, the basic attraction to them which their qualities de-
served. Lastly and above all, the union of Europe--which became the
indispensable condition for its independence and development--demanded
reconciliation and cooperation between Germany and France.

However, the rivalry between East and West which was taking place
on Germany's soil could only aggravate its political and territorial division.
It is true that the Soviets, having in their zone imposed a regime modeled
on their own, were trying to make it believed that, sooner or later, Germany
could be reunited under a system of the same kind. But the Atlantic Alliance,
the Federal Republic's economic and social success, the repugnance which
communism created in the entire German population, made this pretention
futile. For the Soviets to have had a chance of unifying Germany under a
system like their own, they would have had to triumph in a world conflict.

Now, despite the tension they were maintaining in Berlin, they were
careful not to start such a conflict. On the other hand, the United States,
whose policy was at that time led by John Foster Dulles, could think that
by strongly reinforcing NATO, the West would make Moscow withdraw and
thus restore Germany's unity. But that was only a dream, unless someone
made war--something which Washington and its allies were in no way dis-
posed to do. Moreover, a large part of world opinion, while recognizing the
precarious nature of what had become of the old Reich and while disapprov-
ing of the brutal ruse of the wall and barbed wire, accommodated itself to a
situation which, for whatever it was worth, was not preventing coexistence.
Twenty years have thus elapsed without determining Germany's new destiny.

Such indetermination, in such a region of the world and at such a
time, obviously cannot go on forever. Oh, doubtless one can imagine things
continuing as they are for a long time without provoking tomorrow, any more
than they aroused yesterday, a general conflagration, since the reciprocal
nuclear deterrence is succeeding in preventing the worst. But it is clear that
real peace and, even more, fruitful relations between East and West, will
not be established so long as the German anomalies, the concern they cause
and the suffering they entail continue. It is no less clear that, unless there
is fighting so that one or the other imposes its solution, and without failing

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to recognize the reasons for constantly keeping the problem before the conscience of nations, this matter will not be settled by the direct confrontation of ideologies and forces of the two camps today rivaling each other in the world. What must be done will not be done, one day, except by the understanding and combined action of the peoples who have always been, who are and who will remain principally concerned by the fate of the German neighbor-- in short, the European peoples. For those peoples to envisage first examining together, then settling in common, and lastly guaranteeing conjointly the solution to a question which is essentially that of their continent-- this is the only way that can make reappear, this is the only link that can maintain, a Europe in the state of equilibrium, peace and cooperation from one end to the other of the territory which nature has given it.

Certainly, the success of such a vast and difficult undertaking implies many conditions. Russia must evolve in such a way that it sees its future, not through totalitarian constraint imposed on its own land and on others, but through progress accomplished in common by free men and peoples. The nations which it has satellized must be able to play their role in a renewed Europe. It must be recognized, first of all by Germany, that any settlement of which it would be the subject would necessarily imply a settlement of its frontiers and of its armament in agreement with all its neighbors, those on the East and those on the West. The six nations which, let us hope, are in the process of establishing the economic community of Western Europe, must succeed in organizing themselves in the political domain as well as in that of defense, in order to make a new equilibrium possible on our continent. Europe, the mother of modern civilization, must establish herself from the Atlantic to the Urals in harmony and cooperation with a view to the development of her vast resources and so as to play, in conjunction with America, her daughter, the role which falls to her in the progress of two billion men who desperately need it. What a role Germany could play in this world ambition of the rejuvenated old continent!

Doubtless, these conditions appear very complex and these delays seem quite long. But, after all, the solution to a problem as vast as that of Germany can only have large dimensions and consequences.

France, for her part, believes that this problem cannot be resolved except by Europe herself, because it is on the scale of the whole of Europe. This, ultimately, is the basic objective on this continent of the policy of France.

I hope this has answered your question.

## Relations With Other Countries

**Question:** What are the prospects for the relations between France and the Arab countries in North Africa and the Middle East?