The Curse of Fractions
TWO weeks after the fall of Pierre Mendès-France, France was still without a government. President Coty had gone to the right and gone to the left; three men (Antoine Pinay, Pierre Pflimlin and Christian Pineau) had failed to satisfy the Assembly; this week a fourth, Edgar Faure (Mendès-France's Finance Minister), was trying, and once again the air was filled with the bickering, squabbling and jockeying that characterizes the National Assembly of the Fourth Republic.
Snapped the left-wing Combat: "This absurd regime dishonors France, submits her to ridicule abroad, and is...