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Colonialism and Neocolonialism 52
cowardice than for their idleness, a vice unknown to them. ‘They are paid for doing
nothing.’ That’s the idea.
Around 15 June, a petty bourgeois came up to me in front of the Chamber of Deputies
and said furiously: ‘So they’re still in recess, then!’ ‘You have to admit,’ I replied, ‘that
we sent them there.’
He was disconcerted only for a moment and then weighed in again with:
‘We sent them there? Good. But they shouldn’t be paid.’
And our republicans – those who will cast their vote for de Gaulle – are honest workers
who are fond of precise techniques and meticulous actions and who do not recognize
themselves in or – as we shall see – believe they do not recognize themselves in their
elected representatives.
So far we are all in agreement. But we have not yet left the realm of appearances.
Because where does this impotence actually come from? Is it the people who have made
the system, or the system that has made the people?
And what is the system precisely? Opposition to change cannot be its cause, but only
the effect. On this point, responses remain imprecise.
I admit that I read The Princes who Govern Us, by M. Débré, in the hope of setting my
teeth on edge; I was disappointed: there is nothing to chew in this mush. But judging by
the Constitution, the primacy of the legislature is the original sin.
There we are. Let us imagine a man with nerves of steel, a stout and magnificent heart,
a head full of grand plans, whose sole wish is to labour for France and who, to complete
his mission successfully, needs only continuity: this is the executive. Let us now compare
this noble figure with the legislature, that swarming basket of slimy crabs climbing up
over each other and constantly falling. Is it not absurd to subject the man to the whims of
the crabs?
It is at this point that the greatest Gaullist imposture must be denounced. Do they dare
to claim that it is the Assembly that has turned our ministers into those drawn and
terrorized creatures whom we have so often heard reciting rehearsed congratulatory
statements on radio and television? And are these the ministers who caused fear to reign
in the Assembly? Did the Assembly prevent M. Mollet from disowning Ben Bella’s
kidnapping? Did it force M. Gaillard to ‘cover up’ the bombing of Sakhiet?
I say, on the contrary, that all the troubles of recent years have been caused by an overpowerful
executive which has evaded legislative control. Because we did have an
executive. This Prince bombed Haiphong when the Assembly wanted to negotiate with
Ho Chi-minh; he demanded money – the lifeblood of war – which he was granted hastily
and without argument; in Algeria he multiplied the ‘suspect laws’ and police operations,
combed, controlled and bombed; in France itself he seized the opposition press and tried
journalists at military tribunals; the entire life of the nation was shackled by his grandiose
and heroic dreams of reconquest; he sacrificed France to her colonies and the Assembly,
terrified and impotent, rattled around on the tail of the colonial wars like a saucepan on
that of a cat.
The name of this authoritarian and uncontrollable executive was Thierry d’Argenlieu;
today it has a hundred names – Massu, Trinquier, Lacheroy and other ‘colonels’. In 13
years, France has become a militarized country whose sons fight overseas under the
orders of our Princes, the War Lords.