Word: mollet
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Having survived 33 appeals for confidence and nearly 16 months in office, Premier Guy Mollet trod his way to the end last week with a certain nonchalance. "No regrets," he told one of his executioners, "now I can take a rest. They can nail me up on the wall like a trophy, but I won't be used as a doormat." In his conduct of the war in Algeria the militancy of Mollet's patriotism had offended the left, and now that the war bill had to be paid the right was appalled by his Socialism...
Soak the Rich. Having already borrowed the legal limit from the Bank of France and hoping to borrow more to offset the government deficit, Mollet had encountered Bank of France Governor Wilfrid Baumgartner, conscientious keeper of the country's precious bullion reserves. Said smooth, silver-haired Baumgartner: "I want collateral-taxes. And quickly." Mollet's answer: a soak-the-rich tax program that hit corporation earnings, dividends and inventories, added four francs per liter...
Deputies remembered that a year ago Mollet had forced through a 105 billion franc program of old age pensions and paid vacations and still had a proposal to socialize medicine on his books. The temptation was too great to resist: in the constituencies a vote against Mollet on the budget would not be a vote against the Algerian war (which most Deputies favor) but a vote against high taxes and against Socialist experiments...
Suez issue. Mollet had given a patriotic dimension to what was essentially an economic debate. Normally a calm, rational schoolteacher, Guy Mollet hates Nasser with a smoldering passion, and the French respect him for it. One measure of Mollet's standing in the country: Montmartre's irreverent chansonniers, traditionally free with politicians in their songs, do not mock Mollet...
...Boycott for better terms. ''Little by little all our friends are walking out on us in felt slippers . . . even Britain, our comrade in misfortune last November," sighed France's L'Economie. But the show of outrage put up by France's Premier Guy Mollet had more to do with internal politics than foreign policy. French shipping interests were no more eager than the British to lose business to other nations or to "flags of convenience...