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Sardonic Alexis Léger, permanent Undersecretary and for long years actual boss of the French Foreign Ministry, permitted this comedy to unroll, with Blum and Delbos at times physically laying their heads together last week with such Radical Socialist colleagues as gruff, bald Edouard Daladier, Minister of Defense and famed friend of "The Red Marquise". Meanwhile the brilliant London counterpart of M. Léger, the British Foreign Office's saturnine Sir Robert Gilbert Vansittart, was said at the Quai d'Orsay to have sent over a proposal at which Blum, Delbos & Co. should have protested with every ounce of their Socialism but which in fact they received quietly. This, according to the Quai, was nothing less than a dry little suggestion that Fascism had best be humored, Sanctions against Italy withdrawn, the League of Nations "reformed"—whatever that might prove to mean. In sources close to timid Yvon Delbos it was said, "His foreign policy seems to be to collaborate with England."
Devalue the Franc? Only matter except the wants of Le Peuple Souverain to engage Premier Blum actively last week was the question whether to unpeg the franc from gold. This had become something which almost every French political group—but not of course Le Peuple— wanted done at once by some other group, so that the doers would get the blame, France the benefit.
French parties of the Right, champions of the gold franc so long as they were in power, last week were for scuttling the franc under an attractive new formula called "I'alignement des monnaies." In other words, the franc should again be cheapened in value and thus "aligned" with the cheapened pound and dollar.
In the Chamber and Senate last week, President Roosevelt was hailed as the Great Devaluator and benefactor of high finance by both forthright Deputy Paul Reynaud and insidious old Senator Joseph Caillaux, the same who was nearly shot in France for alleged treason with Germany during the War. "Monetary alignment will bring financial and monetary peace!" declared Senator Caillaux and with him chimed in a great former vice governor of the Bank of France, famed Professor Charles Rist. In the Chamber dynamic Devaluationist Reynaud hammered at M. Blum until the harassed Premier, who knows that soon the franc may be forced off gold anyhow, blurted: "But who dares bring in a bill for such a purpose?"
"I dare!" retorted M. Reynaud, but his offer was not taken up. The two Frenchmen in fact were soon displaying their respective eruditions in elliptical sallies of great culture, Premier Blum coming off the victor when he caught Devaluator Reynaud quoting from Montaigne when he had obviously meant to quote La Bruyere. This got matters nowhere but the franc was partly brought down from cultural clouds by new Finance Minister Vincent Auriol, a dumpily determined figure with a wagging forefinger in debate. Although not ten men in Europe know at any time what foxy German Reichsbank Director Dr. Hjalmar Schacht is doing with the mark, Minister Auriol made a fairly good impression by bellowing that he is NOT going to do the same with the franc. Mum and ready to obey the Finance Minister was the Bank of France's new Governor, mild M. Emile Labeyrue, who is as different as possible from domineering Schacht.