Slim, tousle-haired Jeannette Vermeersch, wife of ailing Red Boss Maurice Thorez and herself Communist candidate for the National Assembly, spoke with passion for two hours. She railed against "capitalist exploiters," but her words fell on a lethargic gathering of scarcely 30 people, even though she was speaking in the grimy 18th arrondissement, the reddest of the Red districts of Paris. In tiny Ecurie (pop. 362), only 15 men and a runny-nosed boy turned out to hear Socialist Guy Mollet review his premiership, blame "the Americans" for preventing the Anglo-French conquest of Suez. Were any problems bothering his listeners? he...
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