Word: blum
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...last French election gave the Popular Front a "safe majority" in the Chamber composed of Radical Socialists, Socialists and Communists. These last have no Cabinet seats. At the emergency session it was the Radical Socialists and Socialists who fell to quarreling, with luckless Premier Blum fluttering between them in his accustomed role as the dove of Popular Front peace. After almost two hours' wrangle it was decided to ask Parliament to grant the Cabinet dictatorial powers over French economy and finance for six weeks. Once these had been voted, the Cabinet could then in a more tranquil atmosphere decide...
That afternoon Premier Blum and Finance Minister Auriol went at 3:30 p. m. to ask the Chamber of Deputies for "full powers." Frenchmen have long memories and everyone recalled how, when Premier Aristide Briand made a similar request in 1926, it was Deputy Léon Blum who cried: "Rather than grant such powers, I would prefer that this country had a king!" No less than six French Premiers who have asked for "full powers" were fought on this issue by MM. Blum & Auriol. In 1934 they accused that mild political tabby Premier Gaston ''Papa" Doumergue...
...have the enthusiasm of the Communist Deputies. Their 72 votes are indispensable to the Blum Cabinet, and instructions had come from Moscow last week to make the Premier acutely conscious of this fact. Therefore Communist Deputies who usually cheer Blum & Auriol sat stone-faced last week through their appeals to a Chamber in which only the Socialists cheered...
...post-mortem cables on why the Communist bluff failed to move Socialist Blum last week, leading Paris correspondents agreed that the execution in Moscow of Marshal Tukhachevsky and seven generals of the Red Army (TIME, June 21) has profoundly jolted French political opinion, even to some extent among French Communists. It has always been a question in Paris whether the Red Army was good enough to make the present Franco-Soviet military alliance a worthwhile check to Germany-the eternal enemy. If the news from Moscow means that the Red Army has been immensely weakened by execution of its ablest...
This week Premier Blum took his "full powers" demand back to the Senate and both legislative chambers again excitedly prepared to keep open all night. With two successive Chamber votes of confidence behind him, the Premier had every opportunity to make the kind of fighting speech so much admired in France and force the Senate's hand. Even his Senate enemies admitted that if he made the vote one of confidence this time he could probably force a victory-since the Senate would not want to upset a Cabinet so strongly backed in the Chamber. Instead of showing spirit...