Report From France

Positive physical and economic recovery is very evident in France, but mental and spiritual recovery is not so noticeable. Food, transportation, and industry have made giant strides, but the French people, with no goal to aim at or confidence in the future remain cynical and disillusioned.

France faces a complex problem, which in turn has its bases in many factors including French manpower losses in the two wars, the prolonged German occupation, and the Latin temperament. The latter factor in large part contributes to the French failure to set up a long range, planned program of recovery calling for patience and deliberation along British lines. The difference is obvious in the conversation of the people. In England one talks about the difficulty of obtaining enough with the limited ration coupons allowed the individual. In France, one talks about the difficulty in obtaining enough money to buy things in the face of sky-high black market prices.

With a fine crop coming in, the French land has once again proved itself, and food, in large quantities is getting to market. The meat situation has improved so rapidly that all rationing was lifted last week, and steaks are plentiful--for a price. And here the rub comes in. All food (except milk, which the French never had, and citrus fruits which are out of season) can be had, but for a price. The black market is king. But the strange thing about the black market is that it is not only a phenomenon of shortage but has also become an ingrained, accepted, and sometimes welcome way of doing things. Rationing, with the resulting fair distribution and low prices, cannot work in France. The average Frenchman remains too individualistic and self-centered to appreciate that way of doing things.

Part of the French disillusionment reflects itself in the extreme elevation of money to the position of the most worthwhile and therefore the most desired object in and possession of life. Many Frenchmen openly admit that money is the only thing in life they have an interest in now. A dollar now brings a top price of 185 francs. The foreign visitor to France must trade his money illegally to live; it is not a matter of making a profit at the expense of the French--the opposite is more likely.

Not all is discouraging though. The French were cheered the other day by a scientist's prediction that Germany's population is now on a decline and France's might conceivably surpass it in fifty years. Nothing could bring more peace of mind to France than the fulfillment tomorrow of that prediction, but just what the French are doing to make it come true could not be accurately ascertained by this reporter. The wine is good, though, and the dress shops and perfume counters again bear testimony to that peculiar aspect of French genius. Thanks to the industrious, if not too successful efforts of the dye industry, France today is a nation of blonde women and dark men--certainly an interesting biological phenomenon. Paris, August, 1946.