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The Reds & the Systeme-D. With a lover's passion and a surgeon's skill, Charles de Gaulle listens closely to the heartbeat of France. No doubt many of those who voted for him did so simply because they believe he is always right, as a diagnostician of the present and as a prophet of the future. He seemed to be right about the Communists, who had once pretended to prefer the welfare of France and of French labor above all things. De Gaulle called them "Separatists"; he said that they were agents of a foreign power, that they could have no place in a French government. And it was true that the Communists were now denouncing the Marshall Plan, obviously on orders from the Kremlin. More & more members of the C.G.T. (national labor federation) and their families were becoming disgustedly aware that the Communist leaders were not interested in improving the workers' lot but in using them as tools of Russian foreign policy.
De Gaulle seemed to be right when he called for strengthening the "legal and moral authority" of the state. Inflation and corruption were still unchecked. The people were tired of the Systeme-D and its ubiquitous practitioners. The Systeme-D stands for debrouillardise, an extremely French word which means, roughly, cooking one's own potatoes over any handy fire, even if it is a neighbor's burning house. The French people are not docile, and they do not consent to herding and regimentation unless there is good reason for it. But they love something called I'ordre, which to them means freedom and individualism within healthy limits laid down and enforced by law. As individualists, the French participate in the black market rather than succumb to a maze of strangling regulations; as lovers of I'ordre, however, they are ashamed of the black market.
They may not want a "strong" government, but they want one stronger than the Reds or the racketeers.
The Stakes. In screaming headlines and derisive cartoons the Communists accused De Gaulle of planning a dictatorship, of stooging for the U.S. (see cut). Socialist Premier Paul Ramadier has made, the milder charge that De Gaulle will upset France's traditional procedures and institutions. Socialist Elder Statesman Leon Blum declares him "a seeker after personal power."
Since the end of Napoleon III in 1870, autocracy has had an ugly sound in France, and the Vichy regime under the Germans made it uglier. Millions of French who voted for De Gaulle realized that they were taking a great gamble, but they thought that they must gamble. They staked a possible loss of freedom and a possible civil war against the near-certainty of bankruptcy, prostration and chaos. They were gambling on Charles de Gaulle's integrity. He has professed to be a democrat, and the evidence indicates that he would like to be one—unless "events" force him to be something else. He has talked a great deal lately about the inexorable pressure of "events."
Why They Voted. Last week TIME Correspondent André Laguerre went to an R.P.F. meeting on the Left Bank. He cabled: