(See Cover]
At Les Halles, "the belly of Paris," 250 market women left their stalls last week, crowded into a schoolroom where a plainly dressed woman, obviously and proudly pregnant, talked about food and coal. Her tone was conversational, her words easy to understand. She knew what interested them, did Jeannette Vermeersch. Listening to her was like a chat around a kitchen table. It was hard to realize that Jeannette Vermeersch might be the next First Lady of France.
She spoke of Maurice Thorez (pronounced tore-ezz), to whom she had borne two sons (9 and 4) and whom she had at last married a few months ago. People said that he was Vice President of France. Jeannette Vermeersch denied it, with biting political irony rather than wifely indignation: "Where would he get the money? The Communist Party allows its deputies to keep only 8,500 francs [$70] out of their monthly salary of 30,000 francs [$250]. And this year rich capitalists are not helping Maurice Thorez give 35,000-franc presents to mistresses."
She praised the other five Communist ministers in the present Government for working indefatigably for recovery. A heckler, referring to last winter's electric power crisis, wanted to know why it was necessary to have a Communist Minister of Production in order to cut off the electric current. Thorez' wife retorted that two factors, lack of coal and the drought, had caused the power shortage. Production Minister Marcel Paul had spurred the miners on to increase coal production until it exceeded the prewar level. Then salty Jeannette Vermeersch added with a wink: "And, comrades, we don't believe in God—but it rained. Today there is plenty of current."
Quick Shift. From Paris had flowed a generous measure of the ideas that nourished Western democracy. Were Parisians hungry enough to forget their heritage of freedom? Jeannette Vermeersch and Maurice Thorez were betting that they were. Frenchmen everywhere, nearly as food-and fuel-conscious as the women of Les Halles, last week heard Communists making down-to-earth campaign speeches with little mention of Marxist ideas. By stressing the black market that fed the rich and starved the rest, Party Boss Thorez hoped he could make enough Frenchmen forget the less immediate but not less important issues involved in this Sunday's national elections.
In last month's constitutional referendum the party had blundered badly. It failed to prevent the Catholic M.R.P. from lifting the referendum campaign out of petty details and up to the plane of principle. The Reds were beaten as soon as the M.R.P. succeeded in showing voters the connection between undemocratic provisions in the Communist-drafted constitution and a possible future Communist dictatorship. Freedom v. slavery is not a choice that Frenchmen find hard to make.