OCR
XSAN2 1 for June 1952. ANTOÍNE PINAY'S FRANCE. pel When Premier Edgard Faure, despite his young age and vigour resigned out of sheer physical exhaustion after only a few weeks early this te very prominent man of years fast, a vi-~ gorous opponent of the regime remarked gloatingly to this obser me ver : You shall now witness the ens of a regime in France, because EZ a@llppast errors will come home to roost. He looked right. The country” was in a state of full material and moral liquidation. There was uz nothing more to cling to. The politicians were at their wit's end. <=» The treasury was empty. Public credit was finished. On the black erro market gold and foreign currencies where skyrocke tinge Even the pound began to approach its official parity.e It was clear that the next payments both at home and abroad gould not be met. war ; The crisid following Faure's resignation was hopeless. Ks No one was able to form a cabinet, since no one could find the formula how to manage between the twin dangers of Socialism and Gaullism. It is then that in despair, after having tried in vain all the old stand=by's of the Republic, that President Auriol called an obscure little man, the sixty years old Antoine Pinay. Pinay is a small industrialist from the Center of France. Always interested in larger things, political and economic as well, he had had an obscure carreer in the French Senate just before World War II. Elected as a conservative - Alliance Democratique - he was known to follow the lead of Pierre Etienne Flandin, then President of the Groups In the Senate he was only remarked as a conscientious worker, attentive to technical and economic matters and very reserved on political issues. His practical knowledge, É his rare good sense, his hostility to ideologies and rigid doctrines made him a well-lik ed man withinithe framework of legislative commissionse But in open session he rarely spoke. He was thus known outside of his département, only by the technicians, When Flandin at first showed friendship for Hitler - when he sent his famous Munich wire - Pinay, without taking a stand publicly, showed by his attitude that he did not approve, despite his admiration for Fiandin's technical ability., This was due greatly to the splendid record of Pinay during World War I, where he was noted for his courage and his devotion to his men. During the Occupation years