Foreign News: Storm Signals

After two months in office, Premier Georges Bidault's government was in serious trouble last week, barely managed to win a confidence vote in the Assembly.

Bidault's Finance Minister Maurice Petsche had prepared a budget of 2 trillion 275 billion francs ($6,500,000,000), had balanced it, at least on paper, by calling for 200 billion francs in new taxes. The Radical Socialists (conservatives) drafted what they considered a more realistic budget which would cut out all new taxes, slash government expenditures and leave a deficit of 23 billion francs. The Socialists objected to that: they insisted on the new taxes, threatened strikes if as...

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