Mendès-France — A Domestic Account

Premier Pierre Mendès-France, it is reported here, is being criticized in the United States for lacking a sense of humor. Be that as it may, for the first time in recent history the entertainers of Montmartre are at a loss for jokes at the expense of the head of the government. One of the most popular of these tells his nightly audiences that if Mendès-France remains in office over a year, he will be unable to pay his taxes due to a shortage of “material.”

It is difficult to decide just what factor was most helpful in the rise of Mendès-France: the disaster in Indo-China, the beet and alcohol scandals, the “picayune politics” of M. Bidault at the Foreign Office, or the events in No...