Pierre Mendès-France, son of a clothing manufacturer, is economist first, politician and statesman second. The argument which did most to convince him that the Indo-China war must be stopped was that France could not afford it. His chief ambition in North Africa is to stabilize the area, so that France can concentrate on what he calls the "real battlefront": eco nomic reform.
Mendès-France believes that the limping French economy needs more reform than it did in 1789. In his investiture speech, he promised to submit "a coherent program of recovery and expansion" by...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
