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In other words, France could no longer maintain the fiction that she was one of the world's Big Five, a fiction nurtured by De Gaulle and his successors, affirmed again and again by Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, made statutory in the permanent seats of the U.N. Security Council. As events have shown, and as Mendès-France affirms in effect, it was just an illusion, and the effort of maintaining it in Indo-China proved disaster in fact. What Mendès is now proposing is that France recognize itself as a second-class power, but an honest one. Free of the need to keep up a front. Frenchmen will be relieved of the nagging of creditors, the sneers of critics, the exhortation of friends. Henceforth, they might seem poorer—but feel prouder. Did this mean that Mendès is longing for the illusory place on the sidelines labeled "neutralism"? Mendès denies it. "Let us have no illusions. No imaginable policy could enable us to escape if, unhappily, a new war were to break out... National defense is imperative for any free country, and for France more than any other, because of her geographical position."
Mendès' view might be put in the French saying, Reculer pour mieux sauter—take a step backward so as to jump better. He argues that by trying to be strong everywhere, France is strong nowhere, that strength cannot be achieved anywhere with an overburdened or propped-up economy. Says a British friend: "He does not argue that France should stand alone, but that France should stand erect."
The Gambler. Almost unknown to the general public a year ago, Mendès-France has become a living symbol of change, in a country that longs for change. Previous Premiers had one goal that was more important than all others: to stay in office. A "successful" Premier was the one who managed to stay longest, and however patriotic he might be, he had to shape all his actions towards continuity in office. Generally, this meant that it was safer to do nothing. Thus, a Premier formed his majority first by telling the Catholic M.R.P. that he was for EDC, then telling the anti-EDC nationalists that he did not propose to bring EDC to a vote for some time.
Mendès did not say on what terms he would get peace, or what formula he would achieve for German rearmament. He simply said he would solve these two problems or get out. To a weary and politically conscious people, the appeal of this gamble was unique and overwhelming.