Word: mende
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However much anyone could question his aims, no one could question Mendèes' courage. Last week he walked into an Assembly that resents the way he has gone over its head to the people, and told the deputies in his flat, staccato tones: "If the negotiations should fail on July 20, we would have to safeguard the expeditionary corps ... In other words, it means sending conscripts...
Pledge Fulfilled. Since 1946, no French Premier had dared to suggest that draftees should be sent to fight in the jungles and paddies of Indo-China; only last weekend the Socialists had reaffirmed their stand against it. Mendèes went beyond mere suggestion. Already, he went on, preparations were under way. Troops were getting inoculations and tropical uniforms; permission had been obtained from the NATO command. Said Mendèes: "The national interest demands that the vote be already obtained when I hand in my resignation." It would be the last act of his government, he declared. "Thus...
...sheer surprise, even the Socialists joined the Gaullists in applauding. But the M.R.P. benches were silent. Resentful of Mendèes' takeover of the Foreign Ministry, which had been for so long their province under Bidault and Robert Schuman, the M.R.P. was increasingly hostile, increasingly apprehensive of Mendèes' course. MRPers repeated their charge that Mendes planned a complete capitulation to the Communists. Snapped Bidault: "Never before has one Frenchman done as much to cut off the arms France extends to her allies." In the press, Maurice Schumann, longtime Quai d'Orsay lieutenant of Robert Schuman...
Fresh Troubles. All week long Mendèes worked with an eye on the clock (he had one placed on the table before him at Cabinet meetings). His plan for economic reform was still to be submitted. The two Cabinet members assigned to find a compromise on EDC had already reached a stalemate. And in Tunisia and Morocco, fresh trouble welled...
...role of political Cassandra, Mendèes had long warned of the need for greater concessions to North Africa's nationalists, and as Premier, had created France's first ministry for Tunisian and Moroccan affairs. But it was already dangerously late. In Tunisia, terrorists shot a municipal councilor, bombed a police chief's home, and machine-gunned a bus and a cafeé, killing eight people. Mendèes sent 1,600 French paratroopers to Tunis...