about the future of is a disease that has raged Western quadrangles and ting presses for several centuries. appearance of the Fifth Republic understandably not helped to kill Although admittedly much of the epidemic of speculation had idle to the point of imbecility. the chief trouble with the theories have lately emerged from the pens professors and publicists is lack of ; despite their interpretations of the French eco-nomy, the French national character, the French aspirations to empire grandeur, is their confession that actually know very little about of them.

Raymond Aron, a professor who know something about France, rather amused and occasionally note of this widespread virus in own discussion of the change from Fourth to the Fifth Republic, Steadfast and Changing. His "commentators' country," he says , for "in politics, sickness is interesting than health." The commentators speak of nothing but and paradoxes; "Yesterday feared that France would die of . But now observers are she will not stand the stress of . Eternal France, whose death at any moment..."

Destroys Specious Orthodoxies

To resolve all the contrasts and in the structure of modern would be an impossible task. object of Aron's book is to explain of them, and to destroy, in a et way, what he feels are orthodox and largely specious effusions on the causes and consequences of de Gaulle's new Republic. For commonplace evaluations of such matters as changes in the French economy, the roots of ministerial instability, or the policy of de Gaulle and his predecessors toward Algeria, Aron has little tolerance, and while his own may not be any more convincing, they are at least excellently supported.

Perhaps his most significant remarks are contained in a detailed, original, and persuasive chapter, "Myths and Realities of the French Economy." At the start he observes coldly that "so peculiar does the economy appear that the best observers end by changing it entirely on pretext of describing it." (This is a direct stab at Herbert Luethy, author of the very widely-read France Against Herself. Luethy devotes considerable space to a description of French economic stagnation.) In economics, as in no other field, (says Aron) legends and inaccurate conclusions thrive. Some of the most prevalent myths are that industrial production per worker has stagnated, there are no French entrepreneurs, worker's wages are absurdly low, the tax structure is rife with fraud, and in general, industry and agriculture are heterogeneous to the point of anachronism.

Aron never makes the mistake of insisting that these complaints are the malicious maunderings of critics who have nothing better to do than to set France's hopes for grandeur against the backwardness of her economy. Certainly, he says, there is some validity to most of them. France is a nation of small business, but this does not automatically mean inefficiency in production. Besides, as in most capitalist countries, large companies divide the market in the modern economic sectors. Fraud in tax returns is frequent, but hardly more so than elsewhere. Wages are low, but not significantly lower in terms of purchasing power than those of any other European country. In other words, France usually "resembles the other countries, not that unique and paradoxical being whose eccentricities observers are always lovingly or disparagingly emphasizing."

Not Character, but Rigidity

It is not exactly "national character," Aron points out, but "intellectural rigidity and failure to appreciate reality," that accounts for the slow reaction of his country to the processes of industrialization. Although economic action proposed by legislators is still inevitably colored by engaging romanticism ("crude oil exerts a true attraction only on condition that it be buried under burning sands"), it is by this time fairly flexible and realistic. Always relying on historical perspective, Aron makes a good case for his contention that no inherent inefficiency will retard the growth of the economy.

Yet the same kind of rigidity in colonial affairs has affected economic progress before, and may possibly wreck it eventually. After the Korean War, when the U.S. satisfied itself with a stalemate armistice, Georges Bidault insisted on victory in Indochina. "Resistance," or"immobilisme" was again the theme in dealings with Morocco and Tunisia, a policy which Aron explains by recalling French fears of another Munich or Vichy. The same fears have prevented the transfer of the rest of the empire, Algeria, into nationalist hands.

The Algerian Debate

It is in the French view of Algeria, of course, that Americans are most interested, and the Franco-American debate ("ridiculous," Aron calls it) on the morality and politics of the Algerian situation drags interminably through the editorial pages and literary journals of the West. "When, having learned by experience, the Americans recognize that nationalism in Africa or Asia is neither democratic nor liberal," (writes Aron with singular clarity,) "they plead the inevitable: it would be vain, in the modern world, to oppose the liberation of the colored races...If we assume that they are right, the Americans should not be astonished that the French are not easily convinced." It is easier, as W.W. Rostow has noted, to colonize than to pull out of the colonies.

Withdrawal from Black Africa was not nearly so difficult as withdrawal from Algeria seems likely to be. The Governments of the Fourth Republic, especially that of Mendes-France, had been able to let Morocco and Tunisia slip easily into independence. Yet one and one-half million Frenchmen, paying as much taxes as nine million Moslems, had not lived in Morocco or Tunisia for three generations. All that the liberations of Mendes-France accomplished for Algeria was to strengthen the resistance of the colons to autonomy for what they consider their country.

This attitude, and of course the inability of the Government to get a majority in the Assembly, brought de Gaulle to power in 1958 on many respectable and some very disreputable coattails. "We prefer facism to the independence of Algeria," writes Aron of the position of the "Ultras" and adds in a revealing comment, "but the man to whom they have given absolute power has the soul of a paternal monarch or of a princo-president, not of a tyrant."

I do not feel constrained to go over the state of the Algerian situation here; that story has, basically, been told often enough. But Aron's views on the Fifth Republic's attempt to answer the question: "Is a democracy capable of waging a war of which an important element in the country disapproves?" are completely free of familiar cant, and remarkable in that respect at least. He speculates that two years ago de Gaulle could have acceded to the demands of the F.L.N. for compromise "without provoking a revolt by the French soldiers and citizens of Algeria," so strong was his prestige at that time. He is only vaguely optimistic about later prospects, saying in his Postscript (written in 1959) that it is possible that de Gaulle "can impose an Algerian policy of peace upon the French army." The F.L.N. leaders, Aron points out, are the lesser problem; they trust de Gaulle more than any Premier of the Fourth Republic.

The Alternatives

But de Gaulle is only one man, and whether the center will disappear when de Gaulle goes, Aron refuses to guess. He notes earlier in the text that the Frenchman, "dissatisfied on principle," with a tax system, an industrialization program, or an Algerian policy, "tends to vote against." The parties of the extreme satisfy this need for opposition." Aron hopes that facism (or communism) will not have the chance to come to executive power under a constitution written for de Gaulle alone. He suggests "two courses still open": alliance with the Common Market Six to undertake a coalition great power's "task of economic development with Eurafrica as a final result," or, if France insists on "freedom of action in Africa, she can play an honorable part, but not that of a great power, in the Atlantic Alliance and world affairs.'

A more thoughtful and cogent analysis of steadfast and changing France has not yet been written. Aron is no brilliant apologist for any national cause, despite his former connection with Gaullism; he is St. Raymond, killer of myths, and as such extraordinarily incisive. For his explanations, he offers impressive support; it is only his optimism, as he himself confesses, which must still remain unjustified