Word: mollet
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France's politicians of the center, flanked by the Communists on one side and the tax-defying Poujadists on the other, made the usual noises last week about submerging differences. But Mollet firmly rejected a "national union" of all the democratic center parties, as likely to bring only more immobilism. As "victor," he said, the Republican Front should form a government alone...
...Against. France's political elders were shocked. "Getting a majority is like getting married; it takes more than one party," quipped the irrepressible Premier Faure. Mollet insisted: "We are persuaded that people can govern together only if they are in agreement on one program, however limited. We will say before the Assembly-this is our program. Those who will be for will vote for. Those who will be against will vote against." For France, the idea was almost revolutionary...
Weaver's Son. Dry, meticulous Guy Mollet, a dedicated antiCommunist, was elected Deputy from Pas-de-Calais department at the first postwar election. His father was a weaver who died early,, and his widowed mother worked as a concierge to give young Mollet enough schooling to qualify him as a professor of literature. An early and militant Socialist, the young professor was soon fired for political activity, became secretary of the CGT teachers' union. After serving gallantly in the Socialist underground. Mollet caught the eye of the aging Leon Blum, soon was secretary-general of the Socialist Party...
...classes, the Socialist Party declined steadily from its 1945 peak. It became overloaded with civil servants, postmen, schoolteachers and "leather-chair" (French equivalent of whitecollar) workers, and had little strength in the factories and fields. When the Socialists joined conservative governments, disillusioned supporters deserted to the Communists. In 1951 Mollet declared a policy of nonparticipation, and kept his Socialists out of government and in the posture of general opposition for four years...
...Deals. Under Mollet, however, there is small danger that the Socialists will renew their Popular Front with the Communists. As a man trained in Marxism, Mollet has no serious quarrel with many of their economic doctrines. He simply considers them "representatives of the Soviet Union." One of his favorite sayings is that the Communists "are not left but East." One of France's most ardent "Europeans" and a last-ditch supporter of EDC (he has never quite forgiven his new ally Mendès for letting EDC die), Mollet is also a dedicated friend of the Atlantic Alliance...