The daring experiment by Pierre Mendès – France. – At the National Assembly, Mendès-France delivered a real indictment arguing that there was not a problem of Indochina in its own right, but a series of interdependent problems, which required the reorganization of customs and the regime.

Laniel was forced to ask the question of trust: he was beaten by 306 votes to 293 (June 12, 1954). Mendès-France immediately formed a new government, reserving the Foreign Affairs and entrusting the Interior to France Mitterand, the Defense to gen. P. Koenig, and Finances to Edgard Faure. The axis of the government coalition was thus abruptly brought back to the center-left, despite the fact that the SFIO preferred to remain outside. It was the first time that the task of forming the government was entrusted to those who had taken on the task of an open and public opposition. And it was the first time that the person in charge had managed to form a government in a very short time. And finally it was the first time that the government had escaped the grip of the twenty or so “notables” of the Fourth: all but four ministers had not belonged to the Laniel government.

Mendès-France remains a unique experiment of its kind, and one of the most difficult to define. It clearly detaches itself from any precedent, thanks also to the use of spare majorities, and to a dynamism unmatched in the history of the Fourth.

Having become prime minister, Mendès-France, who professed a clear preference for the Anglo-Saxon method, was able to combine the forces of active democracy at a time when it seemed they were about to be overwhelmed by a coup. Going to Geneva, where the International Conference on Indochina was dragging on, he managed to reach an agreement (July 21) that put an end to a war that had lasted for about eight years and in which the French expeditionary force had had 92,000 dead, 114,000 wounded and 28,000 prisoners. Substance of the agreement: partition of VietNam into a people’s republic in the north (capital Hanoi) and a democratic republic in the south (cap. Saigon); Laos and Cambodia, independent states within the French Union.

According to mathgeneral, the skill and speed with which Mendès-France had carried out this delicate operation raised the general enthusiasm: a few days later he went to Tunisia, in the company of the sea. A. Juin, managing to reopen the dialogue for the start of negotiated independence. But this was supposed to raise against the opposition of the “settlers”, and of the nationalists, opposition that was to increase following the failure of the EDC, that is the pact for the establishment of an integrated European army (August 30), to the forced acceptance of rearmament German (Paris agreements, 23 October), and at the outbreak of the Algerian insurrection (1 November). The defection of the MRP was fatal to him and Mendès-France fell badly (February 15, 1955) without having been able to give full measure of himself. Without doubt he was the victim of personal attitudes which, despite his undisputed intelligence, he was unable to moderate and contain. He made use of a moralism that went beyond governmental functions, while the excessive use of transformism eventually became counterproductive. Individualist, he was unable to substitute a government team for the one he had overthrown. However, there can be no doubt about the seriousness of his attempt to restore a true and efficient government to the Fourth Republic, accustomed to ordinary administration. Therefore he ended up attracting the hatred of those who had already plotted for the overthrow of the regime ever since. excessive use of transformism eventually became counterproductive. Individualist, he was unable to substitute a government team for the one he had overthrown. However, there can be no doubt about the seriousness of his attempt to restore a true and efficient government to the Fourth Republic, accustomed to ordinary administration. Therefore he ended up attracting the hatred of those who had already plotted for the overthrow of the regime ever since. excessive use of transformism eventually became counterproductive. Individualist, he was unable to substitute a government team for the one he had overthrown. However, there can be no doubt about the seriousness of his attempt to restore a true and efficient government to the Fourth Republic, accustomed to ordinary administration. Therefore he ended up attracting the hatred of those who had already plotted for the overthrow of the regime ever since.

The end of the Indochina war released forces that would prove mortal to the “system”: the veterans and above all the career officers brought back to the metropolis the principles and methods of the “revolutionary war” imposed on them by the Indochinese communists. A guerrilla war, more than a war, highly politicized and with extensive use of propaganda and so-called psychological means. After the Geneva Accords, resentment for Dien Bien-Phu’s defeat was accompanied by resentment of part of the Indochinese troops who had fought for the French cause being abandoned in the vengeful Communist hands. The association of former combatants of Indochina and the French Union, which previously had a purely welfare task,