France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (21 page)

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Authors: William I. Hitchcock

Tags: #History, #Europe, #France, #Western, #Modern, #20th Century, #Political Science, #Security (National & International), #test

BOOK: France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954
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Moscow handed down specific instructions to European Communist parties. With the establishment of the Cominform in September 1946, and its criticism of the French and Italian parties for their attempts to take power through parliamentary means, Moscow signaled a new, more aggressive campaign to disrupt the American aid program in Europe. To be sure, ample reasons already existed to justify work stoppages and social agitation. Prices of basic commodities  food, coal, gas, electricity, and transport  all rose as poor harvests, slow industrial activity, and a damaged infrastructure conspired to lower living standards to intolerable levels.
38
Strikes broke out in virtually all industries just as the nation was preparing for municipal elections. These disruptions aided the right as well: in October, the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF), the new party founded by Charles de Gaulle, captured an unexpectedly large portion of the vote in town councils across the country: its 38 percent was larger even than the PCF's 30 percent.
39
The parties of the center, from the Socialists and the MRP to the reemergent Radicals, felt under siege. Léon Blum, the Socialist leader, lashed out at both right and left: ''There exists a Communist danger against personal and civil liberties. But against the same liberties there exists a Caesarist danger of which we must be aware, before which we do not have the right to close our eyes." Blum called for a front of the centrist parties, a Third Force, to stabilize the nation.
40
Within a month, the premier Paul Ramadier fell and was replaced by Robert Schuman, formerly the MRP minister of finance, known only for his orthodox budgetary views and the curious fact that, as he came from Lorraine, he had served in the German army in 1914. Schuman quickly formed a Third Force government, with Socialist, MRP, and Radical members.
41
His appointment of the Socialist Jules Moch as interior minister proved shrewd. Moch instantly mobilized the prefectural bureaucracy, the national guard, and the army to repress the strikes, which at their peak involved over 3 million workers and featured the storming of the Palais de Justice in Marseille. With Moch leading the repression, the left fought the left. Moch and Schuman shattered the legacy of the Popular Front and the wartime resistance coalition. Defeated, France's Communist-dominated labor confederation, the confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), split, with the minority Force Ouvrière breaking off to form a non-Communist labor movement. Ambassador Caffery crowed that this was "the most important event that has occurred in France since the Liberation." The center had held.
42
Whether such a centrist force could hold off the enemies of the re-
 
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gime was by no means clear at the end of the year. The clever American observer of French life, Janet Flanner, thought France was "in the undignified position of an elderly lady doing the splits, her Right leg extended in one direction, her Left in the other, while everyone wondered how long she could hold it."
43
But in the Assembly, the Third Force, as long as it was supported by the Radicals, could hold off the Communists, and there was as yet no RPF representation to contend with in the national legislature. As a consequence, the MRP briefly became the fulcrum of French politics, a position long occupied by the Socialists. It was not necessarily an enviable one, and the responsibilities of power weighed heavily on the MRP members. In an Executive Commission meeting in December, the party's secretary-general, André Colin, issued a communiqué praising Schuman's handling of the strikes though the group agreed that Communist agitation would continue to have legitimacy as long as the economic situation remained out of control. "All questions of politics, and the Soviet Union, aside," Colin suggested, "nothing will stop the working masses [when] motivated by misery and despair."
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The life of the Third Force now depended on a prompt resolution of the economic crisis.
The Third Force was therefore as dependent on American aid for its survival as American policy in Europe was on the success of the Third Force. This pattern of mutual dependence had an important balancing effect on Franco-American relations, for now, Third Force leaders could invoke the dual PCF-RPF threat to the regime when the Americans pressed too hard on German policy. On the other hand, the need for economic reform and American aid only underscored the role of the United States in making the Third Force experiment a success. The two sides developed some common ground in the solutions proposed for domestic economic policy, as the Third Force proved to be advocates of orthodox, or at least neoliberal, policies and provided a much needed counterweight to the high-investment strategy of the Monnet Plan. The Third Force, by securing a measure of domestic stability and economic reform, had shown itself a reliable partner in the U.S.-sponsored recovery effort in Europe.
45
Recognizing France's own economic weaknesses, French leaders were compelled to reconsider their understanding of economic recovery in Europe as a whole. Above all, the German question remained the chief problem in setting out a European strategy for recovery, and the Third Force was vulnerable to attack on this issue. It could not give up too much to the British and Americans on Germany without securing genuine
 
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concessions in return. These would have to include some kind of international control over the Ruhr, and an assurance that Ruhr resources would be integrated into France's own recovery program. The Third Force now acknowledged that the policy of confrontation that de Gaulle had practiced was out of the question, but the survival of this government coalition demanded success in the area of German policy to defuse critics on both the left and right. The interests of France and the United States appeared to require compromise on the German question.
46
The Search for Compromise on Germany
The CEEC and the level-of-industry debate during the summer of 1947 brought home to French officials that the United States, supported strongly by Great Britain, planned to direct a program of European recovery centered on the use of German economic and industrial resources. France had been placed on the defensive by the swiftness of American policy, and the Quai d'Orsay tried to make up for the damage done to its German policy by attempting to strike a broad compromise on the Ruhr before the Anglo-American plans for German recovery came to fruition. Meeting with Marshall just after the CEEC, Bidault presented him with a proposal, worked out in the Quai by Hervé Alphand, for an international authority in the Ruhr that would oversee the activities of the local German authorities charged with managing the Ruhr operations. This agency would monitor the distribution of coal and coke supplies between domestic consumption and export, thereby ensuring that the Ruhr was integrated into the European economy and treated as not just a German asset but a European one. The proposal was clearly an attempt to undo the part of the recent zonal plan that had given to local German authorities the job of managing the mines on behalf of the ACC.
47
In return for an international Ruhr authority, France offered to fuse its zone with the bizone. The French zone of occupation had been a keystone of France's German policy since de Gaulle. It was an expression of France's role as a great power, and boosted French influence in the management of German affairs between 1944 and 1947. The creation of the bizone, however, left France powerless to orient the policy of its Anglo-American partners in Germany, particularly as Marshall had adopted Clay's general position that French views would not be given much weight until trizonal fusion had occurred. Publicly, of course, the French government could not admit that it was ready to accede to U.S. demands for zonal fusion. Within the Quai
 
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d'Orsay, though, the fear that Anglo-American policy might lead to a restoration of German economic power before adequate controls had been put in place led to growing arguments in favor of fusion.
48
To be sure, there were strong objections to this line of thinking, particularly from those who identified with the Gaullist policy of confrontation. When General Pierre Koenig, France's zonal commander, was solicited for his views by the Foreign Ministry, he admitted that economic fusion was unavoidable, but argued that precisely because France was already so weak in the face of American economic power in Germany, it must maintain intact its zonal control as a manifestation of independence. Thus, he believed that any fusion agreement should incorporate the veto power that each commander enjoyed in the ACC and provide for the continued sovereignty of each commander in his own zone.
49
General Jean Humbert, vice-chief of the General Staff, echoed Koenig in a report, prepared at the Quai's request, on the security implications of fusion. In his view, fusion with the bizone would imply a loss of autonomy for France in Germany and force Paris to acquiesce in the inevitable rearmament of western Germany that Humbert believed the Anglo-Americans were preparing. Further, the fusion of zones would "constitute a decisive step on the way toward an abandonment of neutrality," and as such, would provoke the Soviets at a time when Europe's defenses were weak.
50
Both men voiced the concern that, once the French had given up the rights the occupation provided them, a West German state of considerable strength would be unleashed from its strictures, freed to create havoc in Europe.
The arguments in favor of fusion came from some very influential figures, however, and were based more soundly on the belief that without fusion, French influence in Germany would continue to wane. René Massigli exhibited his usual common sense in arguing that the zonal policy of France, by contributing to the political and economic instability in Germany, only increased the potential for Communist agitation and Soviet expansion. Given the evident determination of the United States to deter these threats, Massigli believed that France's chief objective  to contain German recovery  could be pursued only from within an American-sponsored trizone, through which France could exert some influence on German policy. "Entering now into the [bizonal] system," he concluded, "we have the means to make known our views on its organization." By remaining aloof, France would soon be isolated.
51
From the financial perspective, this argument for fusion was irrefutable. The economic detachment of the Saar from the zone, with which
 
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the French were proceeding, would deprive the region of the income that coal exports had brought it and contribute to a zonal trade deficit that was estimated to reach $ 60 million in 1948. Fusion would eliminate that burden, for the deficit, once considered part of the total German trade deficit, would be covered by Marshall aid. The growing financial burden of the occupation led Finance Minister René Mayer to support fusion. In light of American economic preponderance, and France's growing financial troubles, the kind of policy Koenig advocated was simply not a viable option.
52
By November, the Foreign Ministry seemed to have reached the same conclusions: if the Anglo-American reconstruction of Germany were to go forward without French participation, France's views on Germany's economic and political organization would not be heard.
53
The failure of the CFM conference in NovemberDecember 1947 to achieve any four-way agreement on the principles for governing occupied Germany opened the way for a direct approach by Bidault to the United States and Britain on Germany. Bidault had been a good soldier during these talks; at Marshall's request, he did not raise the question of international control of the Ruhr because of the possibility of Soviet insistence on inclusion in such a system. Rather, Bidault had stood steadfast with the West, letting the Anglo-American strategy of isolating the Soviets unfold.
54
Now, in the wake of the failed conference, he believed that France would have an opportunity to strike a deal with its western partners on the Ruhr and on zonal fusion, without the Soviets present to object. Bidault hoped, at long last, to secure a commitment from his counterparts to a comprehensive discussion on Germany, in which the Ruhr, the Saar, political organization, and zonal fusion would all be discussed. Marshall and Bidault, meeting informally in London, agreed to a three-way conference on Germany, although Marshall did not think that wide-ranging talks would accomplish much unless the commanders in chief first ironed out many of the technical questions concerning zonal relations. Nevertheless, Bidault felt he had secured Marshall's assent to a broad, high-level conference on German problems.
55
Before the agenda of this three-way conference on Germany had been formalized, however, France suffered yet another blow to its positions on Germany, this one again delivered by the military governors of the bizone. The commanders, with the tacit support of their respective governments, announced plans in early January 1948 to reform the economic and political structure of the bizone. Specifically, the zonal commanders proposed to double the size of the Economic Council, the body

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