Premier Pierre Mendès-France, said an unfriendly critic recently, is like a man on a bicycle who has to keep moving to avoid a spill. Last week, though no spill seemed imminent, the Mendès-France bicycle was patently wobbling.
First there was the inconsequential Post and Telegraph Ministry budget, on which Mendès impatiently demanded a vote of confidence. He wonbut by the narrowest margin of his meteoric, five-month tenure: 321 to 207. Later in the week, on the eve of his take-off for a ten-day visit to Canada and the U.S., Mendès asked the Assembly to postpone debate on the ugly North...
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