Dissident Voices from Paris

We have recently had some interesting new political books in France. La Nouvelle Société, by Jacques Chaban-Delmas, the Premier of France; Le Grand Tournant du Socialisme, by Roger Garaudy, a leading Communist intellectual; and Le Manifeste du Parti Radical, by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, the editor of L’Express—all three demonstrate, each in its own way, a wish to cope with a new situation, yet each also testifies to its author’s inability to deal effectively with that situation— a dilemma that is shared by the people these men are addressing.

Chaban-Delmas promises France “a Swedish, albeit sunnier, socialism.” But it is not he who governs France, and George Pompidou, who has never wanted to hear talk of so-called Gaullist Participation, is anything but a socialist, Swedish or otherwise, either in his way of thinking or acting. To achieve “socialism’s big shift,” Garaudy addresses a Com...