FRANCE: Popular Premier

At last it looked as if poorly led France had found a helmsman. Nimble little Pierre Mendes-France emerged from near-obscurity to end the Indo-China war, kill off EDC and exact huge concessions from France's allies. Last week he demonstrated beyond all doubt that he is now the most popular man in France and its strongest Premier since the heyday of Charles de Gaulle.

Only four months ago he was an outsider, disliked as an intellectual and a heckler, attacked by bigots as a Jew and by fellow politicians for his unabashed ambition. Last week, a phenomenon of 47, he was...

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