Word: mende
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Premier dared to tell the U.S. (which wants a German contribution to Western defense) the truth about EDC's chances in Parliament-the truth apparently being that there is not a findable majority in both houses for the treaty in its present form. Last week Premier Pierre Mendès-France, man of elan, defied both bugaboos. He loaded the project with "interpretive protocols" (actually drastic amendments) and scheduled it for debate and vote, Aug. 28-31. He has told Secretary Dulles that unless EDC is modified, it would be voted down in the Assembly by about 50 votes...
...Mendès himself has never expressed any strong opinion either for or against EDC. Recently he joked to a friend: "When I listen to its adversaries, I am rather for it. When I listen to its friends, I am rather against it." To his own divided Cabinet (15 against, 13 for) he said: "To partisans of EDC, I say that if you insist on the treaty as it stands, it will be defeated. To enemies of EDC, I say that if you insist on defeating the treaty you endanger France's alliances. Please study my plan in that...
...French Assembly falls roughly into two groups: 1) opponents of West German rearmament in any form (this includes the Communists); 2) Frenchmen who accept the need for German arms but dislike the treaty's constraints on French sovereignty (in order to put similar supranational restraints on Germany). Mendès hoped to win enough Assembly votes from this second group by adding these key revisions or "protocols...
Reynaud's biggest worry was that the New Deal might cut military expenses to win economic gains. "For eight years you have been in opposition," he told Mendès-France, "and often you have made it plain that you would save money by reducing military expenditure. Are you betting the peace of the world on the good will of the Kremlin or on the defensive alliance of the Atlantic? I am among those who will not agree to gamble the survival of France on a hand of poker...
Question of Confidence. Stung, Mendès-France leaped up to reply. In the 1955 budget, cuts would have to be made in both military and civilian expenses, he said. But he promised "a rigorous defense" of the currency; to mollify the workers and peasants, he promised to lower the barriers to foreign competition "with the utmost prudence." But in the main lines of his program, and in his demand for full power, Mendès-France would not yield a centimeter. "The vote will be a question of confidence," he told the National Assembly, and in the prevailing atmosphere...