Guy Mollet

Guy Mollet
Prime Minister of France
In office 1 February 1956 – 13 June 1957
Preceded by	Edgar Faure
Succeeded by	Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury
Personal details
Born	31 December 1905 Flers, Orne
Died	3 October 1975(1975-10-03) (aged 69) Paris
Political party	SFIO

Guy Mollet (French pronunciation: ​[ɡi mɔlɛ]; 31 December 1905 – 3 October 1975) was a French Socialist politician. He led the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) party from 1946 to 1969 and was Prime Minister from 1956 to 1957.

Life

Early life and World War II

He was born in Flers in Normandy, the son of a textile worker. He was educated in Le Havre and became a school teacher in Arras. Like most teachers, he was an active member of the French Socialist Party, then called the SFIO, and in 1928 he became SFIO Secretary for the Pas-de-Calais département. He joined the French Army in 1939 and was taken prisoner by the Germans. Released after seven months, he joined the Resistance in the Arras area and was three times arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo.

Early political career

In October 1945 Mollet was elected to the French National Assembly as representative of Pas-de-Calais. In 1946 he became Secretary-General of the SFIO, standing against Daniel Mayer, the candidate supported by Léon Blum. Mollet represented the left-wing of the party which feared the dissolution of the Socialist identity in a centerist conglomerate. Although he retained Marxist terminology, he accepted alliance with center and center-right parties during the Fourth Republic, and his relations with the French Communist Party (PCF) - which had become the largest left-wing party - were very poor. Indeed, in his mind, "the Communist Party is not on the left, but in the East".

He served as vice-Prime minister in 1946. From 1950 to 1951 he was Minister for European Relations in the government of the Radical René Pleven, and in 1951 he was Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Henri Queuille. He represented France at the Council of Europe, and was President of the Socialist Group on the Council's Assembly. From 1951 to 1969 he was Vice-President of the Socialist International.

Premiership

During the 1956 legislative campaign, he created a center-left coalition called the Republican Front with the Radical Party of Pierre Mendès-France, the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance led by François Mitterrand and the Social Gaullists headed by Jacques Chaban-Delmas.

It won the election with a promise to re-establish the peace in Algeria. As leader of the main party of the coalition, Mollet led and formed the cabinet in January 1956.

Suez

Although Mollet wanted to concentrate on domestic issues, he found himself confronted with a major foreign policy issue, concerning Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's continued support for Algerian nationalists, and his nationalisation of the Suez Canal, which led to the Suez Crisis.

In addition to mutual concern for maintaining their overseas possessions, and Mollet's concern with Nasser's Algeria involvement, Eden feared that Nasser intended to cut off oil supplies to Europe. As a result, in October 1956 Mollet, Eden and the Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion met and secretly colluded to attack Egypt jointly. The Israelis invaded Egypt first, with British and French troops invading the northern Suez Canal area, shortly thereafter. But the scheme met with unexpected opposition from the United States, both at the United Nations and economically; France and the United Kingdom were forced into a humiliating backdown. Eden resigned as a result, but Mollet survived the crisis, despite fierce criticism from the left.

In Michael Karpin's 2001 documentary "A Bomb in the Basement", Abel Thomas, who in 1956 had been chief of political staff for France's defense minister, said Francis Perrin, head of the French Atomic Energy Commission, advised then-Prime Minister Mollet that Israel ought to be provided with a nuclear bomb. According to the documentary, France provided Israel with a nuclear reactor and staff to set it up in Israel together with enriched uranium and the means to produce plutonium in exchange for support in the Suez War.^[1][2]

Algeria

Like the rest of the French left, Mollet opposed French colonialism, and had supported Mendès-France's efforts in office to withdraw from Tunisia and Morocco (who were granted independence in 1956 by the loi-cadre Deferre). Mollet's government was left with the issue of the three departments of Algeria, where the presence of a million French settlers made a simple withdrawal politically impossible.

At first, Mollet's policy was to negotiate with the National Liberation Front (FLN). Once in office, however, he changed his mind and argued that the FLN insurgents must be defeated before negotiations could begin. Mollet's visit to Algiers was a stormy one, with almost everyone against him. He was pelted with rotten tomatoes at a demonstration in Algiers on 6 February 1956, a few weeks after becoming prime minister. The French refer to this memorable event as "la journée des tomates".

He poured French troops into Algeria, where they conducted a campaign of counter-terrorism including torture, in particular during the Battle of Algiers which took place from January to October 1957. This was too much for most French people, and Mollet's government collapsed in June 1957 on the issue of taxation to pay for the Algerian War. The Secretary of State to Foreign Affairs Alain Savary, also a SFIO member, resigned because of his opposition to Mollet's hardline stance in Algeria.

Domestic policy

Mollet's cabinet carried out a programme of progressive social reform which went unnoticed due to the international context and the Algerian War. Substantial improvements were made in welfare provision for the sick and elderly, funding for regional aid and housing was increased,^[3] veterans' payments were extended,^[4] and a third week of paid holidays was introduced. Mollet's government passed other pieces of social legislation during its time in office, including an increase in wages and improved medical benefits.^[5] The level and mechanism of state pensions to both the elderly and chronically ill was improved, while working-class housing was also given close attention, with HLMs receiving top priority in the government’s target of 320,000 houses in 1956.^[6] Educational opportunities were increased, while wage-price levels were adjusted in favour of workers and civil servants.^[7]

In June 1956 a national solidarity fund for the elderly was set up, that provided supplementary allowances for elderly people to provide them with a more adequate income.^[8][9] In addition, a law of December 1956 established an allowance for the mothers of household for non-salaried workers.^[10] Sales tax on essential commodities was abolished,^[11] while regional differences in minimum wage standards across France were reduced.^[12] A decree of November 1956 abolished written homework for children through the sixth grade, thereby lightening the load on French schoolchildren, while official instructions of January 1957 specified that nursery schools should include such facilities as a medical room and a recreational room.^[13] An Act was passed in April 1957 allowing people who employed domestic help in their service to form an employers' association,^[14] while a law was passed giving the AFP news agency its subsequent legal status.^[15] In addition, an Act of July 1957 confirmed a 1955 that created a complementary procedure for mediation.^[16]

As a means of encouraging scientific research, a Decree of March 1957 made provision for research bonuses to be awarded to research workers of the National Centre for Scientific Research and to staff of universities and technical colleges engaged in research. Under a decree of June 1956, the Atomic Energy Authority founded the National Institute of Technical Nuclear Science at Saclay. Under an Act of March 1957, a National Institute of Applied Science was opened at Lyon. Under a decree of November 1956 the National Institute of Nuclear Science and Techniques was authorized “to organize courses for third-cycle doctorates in metallurgy and in accelerator physics awarded by science faculties, as well as to award the necessary certificates for the obtention of these doctorates.” A ministerial decision of November 1956, instituted a course in atomic engineering, at the National Institute of Nuclear Science and Techniques, “designed to train engineers in the construction and working of nuclear reactors.” A decree of August 1956 instituted a national diploma in fine arts, while a ministerial decision of December 1956 instituted a national certificate of oenology. A decree of February 1957, founded in each faculty of arts or science, under the Dean's authority, “a training institute for secondary school teachers, run by a professor,” for training future teachers for secondary, teacher training, national vocational and technical schools.^[17]

Although the Mollet Government introduced a broad range of reforms during its time in office, financial constraints prevented the passage of other planned reforms, such as the refunding of a higher percentage of prescription charges, extended rights for comites d’enterprise, and the compulsory arbitration of works disputes.^[6]

Foreign policy

In foreign policy, Mollet negotiated and signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community. Liberalising reforms were carried out in various parts of the French Empire, although not in Algeria. Gaston Deferre’s loi-cadre of 23 June 1956 generalized universal suffrage throughout the territories d’outre-mer and based their assemblies on a common voting-roll.^[6]

Mollet's cabinet was the last government formed by the SFIO, which was in increasing decline, and also the last stable government of the Fourth Republic. The Algiers coup of 1958 led by First Indochina War and Suez Crisis veterans brought Charles de Gaulle to power from retirement and in effect seized power. Mollet supported him on the grounds that France needed a new constitution which would allow the formation of strong governments. De Gaulle appointed him one of four Secretaries of State in his first cabinet. This caused the creation of the PSU, the Unified Socialist Party, formed by the PSA Autonomous Socialist Party and the UGS (Union de la gauche socialiste, a split of the SFIO).

Late political career

Guy Mollet, former PM of France, his wife, and Golda Meir, watching Israel's Independence Day Parade in Tel Aviv, 13 May 1959

Guy Mollet at a Socialist International meeting in Haifa in 1960, with Erich Ollenhauer (L)

Mollet resigned from de Gaulle's cabinet in 1959 and did not hold office again. He remained Secretary General of the SFIO, but under de Gaulle's new system, the Fifth Republic, it was a powerless opposition party, and by the 1960s it was in terminal decline.

During the 1965 presidential campaign, he presented himself again as the guardian of Socialist identity, opposing the candidacy of Gaston Defferre who proposed the constitution of a "Great Federation" with the non-Gaullist center-right. He supported François Mitterrand's candidacy and participated in the center-left coalition called Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left, however it split three years later.

His leadership over the party was more and more challenged. He could not prevent the designation of Defferre as SFIO candidate at the 1969 presidential election. The disastrous result (5%) induced the SFIO to merge with left-wing clubs in a new Socialist Party, in which Mollet abandoned the leadership to Alain Savary. However, the internal opposition to Savary, which accused Mollet of being the true party leader from the sidelines, allied with François Mitterrand who joined the party during the Epinay Congress and took the leadership in 1971.

Mollet and his followers were ejected in the minority of the party. He mocked the Socialist speeches of Mitterrand: "He is not socialist, he has learned to speak socialist."

Death

Guy Mollet died in Paris in 1975 of a heart attack. He is one of the most controversial of the French Socialist leaders. His name is tied up with the SFIO decline and his repressive policy in Algeria. In French political language, the word molletisme equates to duplicity, making left-wing speeches to win elections then implementing a conservative policy. French Socialist politicians currently prefer the moral authority of Pierre Mendès-France, although he was not a member of the party.

Biographies

His biography, by Denis Lefebvre, was called Guy Mollet: Le mal aimé (Guy Mollet: The Unpopular Man).

Further reading

Aussaresses, General Paul, The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria, 1955–1957. (New York: Enigma Books, 2010) ISBN 978-1-929631-30-8.

See also

• Anglophile

Mollet's Ministry, 1 February 1956 – 13 June 1957

• Guy Mollet – President of the Council
• Christian Pineau – Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury – Minister of National Defense
• Jean Gilbert-Jules – Minister of the Interior
• Robert Lacoste – Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs
• André Morice – Minister of Industry
• François Mitterrand – Minister of Justice
• René Billères – Minister of National Education, Youth, and Sport
• François Tanguy-Prigent – Minister of Veterans and War Victims
• Gaston Defferre – Minister of Overseas France
• Albert Gazier – Minister of Social Affairs
• Pierre Mendès-France – Minister of State

Changes

• 14 February 1956 – Paul Ramadier succeeds Lacoste as Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs. Morice leaves the ministry and is not replaced as Minister of Industry.
• 21 February 1956 – Jacques Chaban-Delmas enters the Ministry as Minister of State.
• 23 May 1956 – Mendès-France leaves the ministry

References

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