FRANCE: Road to Glory

They used to call Edouard Daladier, in public, the "Bull of Vaucluse," while behind his back they muttered: "that cow of vacillation." They used to draw cartoons of Léon Blum shaking with fright at the gusty leftism released when his Popular Front swept the 1936 elections. But last week, at the "war guilt" trials in Riom, ex-Premier Daladier was no flabby trimmer, ex-Premier Blum no weakling.

His neck muscles bulging, Daladier bellowed at the pettiness of the Vichy charges. He absolved his codefendant, Pierre Jacomet, of falsifying arms-production figures. He harked back to...

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