Word: schuman
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Premier of France Robert Schuman, who had just gone through an Assembly session which might or might not result in the fall of his Cabinet, smiled. "As usual," he said. "It seems they are giving me three weeks to find you a cheap steak...
Deadline in March. Robert Schuman's way of summing up the situation, at the level of the deliberate commonplace, made his government's crisis sound almost trivial. But Frenchmen knew what he meant. And they knew that if Schuman failed in his efforts to halt rising prices, and his coalition government fell, the situation might be beyond the power of any new coalition to solve. That would almost certainly mean an early showdown between the two challenging opposites in France today-Charles de Gaulle's super-party, Rassemblement du Peuple Français, and the Communists...
...clampdown on meat prices was another move in Premier Robert Schuman's efforts to combat French inflation and revive French industry. First, he had tried a partial return to a free economy, with franc devaluation, open trading in gold and dollars, lifting of many price controls. But when, on Socialist insistence, Schuman had called in 5,000-franc notes, many Frenchmen (especially farmers) had lost confidence in their currency. Prices continued to shoot upward. In a month the cost of onions and potatoes went up 50%, mutton 20%, carrots...
...What's the Use?" Now Schuman was trying to stop price increases by a partial return to dirigisme (state control). One housewife last week voiced a typical complaint: "I'd rather pay five francs more a pound for my meat than pay taxes for the wages of these government snoopers. They won't stop prices rising, anyway-they will simply drive the meat off the market...
What many a housewife only vaguely understood was that unless Schuman, by some method, checked soaring prices, his government, and perhaps the Fourth Republic, would fall. Already the Communist-controlled Federation of Labor (which claimed that the cost of living had risen 21.5% since Schuman granted general wage increases last Dec. 1) was demanding a new 20% general wage increase. The demand-which, if granted, would simply push prices still higher-gave Communists a popular rallying cry in a new onslaught against Schuman's government. Schuman last week grimly accepted the challenge: "I am ready for my greatest battle...