Word: pleven
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Premier Pleven answered: Northern Indo-China will be defended as it has always been. By 353 to 215, the National Assembly voted to keep the French forces in Indo-China...
...fall of Langson to a Chinese army had brought about the fall of a French government. Then it was Premier Jules ("Le Tonkinois") Ferry under attack by fiery Georges Clémenceau. Last week no Clémenceaus were on hand to upset the cabinet of Premier René Pleven. Yet debate over Indo-China at Paris was bitter. Rightist Deputy Edmond Michelet assailed "successive governments" for "an incoherent policy ... As late as Oct. 7 we were told that the Viet Minh forces could not launch a general offensive." Radical Deputy Pierre Mendès-France warned: "If we want...
Premier René Pleven's cabinet of Socialists, Popular Republicans, other center and moderate right parties, formed last July, shooed off the Assembly for a pro longed vacation. Then Pleven announced a forceful program. He wanted to increase compulsory military service from 12 to 18 months, to double the military budget, to outlaw Communist spies and saboteurs, etc. But to translate all this into action, he still needed the Assembly. Last week the legislators came back to Paris. Pleven's cabinet immediately found itself teetering. Its survival was threatened by four issues...
...German rearmament had split Pleven's ministers. The Socialists were dragging their feet over the issue. One of their spokesmen, Defense Minister Jules Moch, was opposed to the U.S. plan for quick recruitment of a Germany army. "I will be the minister of French rearmament, not of German rearmament," he said stubbornly. A hectoring Communist communiqué from Prague (see INTERNATIONAL), demanding a halt to German rearmament, sent some Socialists into a flutter; they saw "another Korea on our doorstep...
...Pleven was pushing electoral reform. In place of proportional representation, a clumsy failure because it encourages multiple-party paralysis, the Premier proposed a "système majoritaire," which would build up a few strong parties at the expense of the weakest. Pleven was determined to fight for this program, even if it meant his downfall...