FRANCE: Violet

Astride his huge granite charger, Louis XIV, most unrepublican of monarchs, arrogantly dominates the sloping courtyard outside the Elysée Palace. Under Louis’ haughty eye last week, Vincent Auriol’s black Delage bumped slowly over the cobblestones. Bugles blared and magnesium flares zigzagged through the gathering gloom.

Half an hour before, 62-year-old Vincent Auriol, as President of the Assembly, had presided over his own election as 13th President of France. The Communists and Socialists together did not have enough votes, but Socialist Auriol had many Radical and M.R.P. friends whose votes pushed him over the top.

To the accompaniment of rolling drums, Vincent Auriol had walked slowly out to the waiting car. Said he, with a sense of impending crisis: “I must go fast.” Within half an hour he had received from Leon Blum the resignation of the interim Socialist government.

Auriol’s first act was to hand the task of forming a government to tufted Paul Ramadier, a Socialist, who had been Minister of Food in 1944 and more recently Minister of Justice. Ramadier’s manner is so retiring that in the Resistance he was given the code name of “Violet.”

By week’s end, modest Ramadier quietly let it be known that he expected to form a government including Communists, Socialists, Radicals and right-wing independents. The M.R.P. was reluctant to join a Cabinet which would have a Communist as Defense Minister.