L’Écho d’Alger
- For Algeria
- Franco-German talks
- Administrative reforms
A caustic editorial attacks Viollette’s appointment and dealings with his Dreux supporters. A Berlin dispatch stresses Britain’s place in Franco-German cooperation, while Sarraut prepares further administrative reform.
Partial reading: the headings and first two body paragraphs of “For Algeria,” “Franco-German talks,” and “Administrative reforms,” including the latter two subheadings. Later paragraphs and other front-page articles are outside this transcription.
Translation
For Algeria
Having arranged his own appointment as Governor-General, Mr Viollette therefore took 28 days to have it ratified by Mr Caillaux’s cordial antipathy and Mr Painlevé’s weakness. He now had to explain the affair to Eure-et-Loir. For Mr Viollette has far too high an opinion of his merits and charms not to have assumed that his fellow countrymen must be distraught at his departure.
To mitigate the disastrous effects of such a cataclysm and reassure his friends and political following, Mr Viollette sent a few communiqués to the local newspapers in the guise of confidences. And that was when the people of Dreux found no consolation. The Drouais are the inhabitants of Dreux, and Mr Viollette is, by definition, the super-Drouais.
Franco-German talks
Europe’s future rests on a rapprochement between France, Britain and Germany
Berlin, 25 September. — Germania declares that, in pursuing Franco-German rapprochement, everything that might arouse Britain’s mistrust must be carefully avoided.
French statesmen have no intention whatsoever of abandoning an understanding with Britain and Germany; Europe’s future must be built on constant cooperation among the three great powers that met at Locarno: Germany, France and Britain.
Administrative reforms
Mr Sarraut wants to complete them through decentralization and the delegation of central government powers to local state offices
Paris, 25 September. — Mr Albert Sarraut, Minister of the Interior, will shortly submit to the President of the Republic for signature a decree intended to complete, through decentralization and the delegation of central government powers to local state offices, the administrative reforms he has already begun by abolishing a number of posts of subprefect, secretary-general and prefectural councillor.
Some 20 years ago, when he was Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior in Clemenceau’s cabinet, Mr Sarraut had already considered a series of measures along these lines, which he had then been unable to carry out for lack of time.
Context
Why an Algerian editorial turns to Dreux
Maurice Viollette’s political base lay in metropolitan France: he became deputy for Dreux in 1902 and its mayor in 1908 before his appointment as Governor-General of Algeria in 1925. That connection explains the editorial’s excursion to Eure-et-Loir and its joke about a “super-Drouais.” Its opening attacks personal ambition and the management of local supporters; “cordial antipathy” and the supposedly catastrophic departure are sarcasm. Viollette also advocated selective access to French citizenship for Algerian Muslims, a policy that brought him into conflict with powerful colonial interests. This wider political setting helps explain why his authority attracted fierce argument, although the excerpt itself concentrates on his appointment and self-presentation.
Why Britain mattered to Franco-German reconciliation
Locarno placed Franco-German reconciliation within a wider European security arrangement. At the October 1925 negotiations, Britain’s Austen Chamberlain joined France’s Aristide Briand and Germany’s Gustav Stresemann; Belgium and Italy also participated in the Rhineland treaty, alongside separate arbitration agreements involving Poland and Czechoslovakia. British involvement therefore mattered to the structure of the settlement. The Berlin dispatch’s insistence on avoiding British suspicion presents rapprochement as continuing cooperation among major powers. Its three-country formula is a political emphasis, not a complete list of Locarno’s participants. The Nobel presentation speech used here described these negotiations in December 1926, after this newspaper appeared.
Administrative economy and the location of power
Albert Sarraut held the Interior portfolio in Poincaré’s national-union cabinet of 1926. His promised decree followed a major contraction of the state’s territorial apparatus: the government abolished 106 subprefectures that year. The article presents the next step as a change in where decisions would be taken, after the removal of administrative posts. Its two terms describe different possibilities: decentralization assigns responsibilities to local authorities, while déconcentration delegates decisions to the state’s own offices outside the central administration. This distinction explains why Sarraut could couple both ideas with an economy drive. The excerpt announces an intended decree; it does not yet provide its final provisions or demonstrate its effects.
Original
POUR L’ALGÉRIE
POUR L’ALGÉRIE
M. Viollette ayant procédé à sa propre nomination comme Gouverneur Général, mit donc vingt-huit jours à la faire ratifier par la cordiale antipathie de M. Caillaux et la faiblesse de M. Painlevé. Il lui fallait maintenant expliquer la chose à l’Eure-et-Loir. Car M. Viollette a trop bonne opinion de ses mérites et de ses séductions pour n’avoir pas admis que ses compatriotes devaient être désespérés de son départ.
Pour pallier aux effets désastreux d’un tel cataclysme, pour rassurer amis et clientèle, M. Viollette lança quelques communiqués aux journaux locaux sous forme de confidences. Et c’est alors que les Drouais ne se sont pas consolés. Les Drouais sont les habitants de Dreux et M. Viollette, par définition, est le super-Drouais.
Les conversations franco-allemandes
Les conversations franco-allemandes
L’avenir de l’Europe est basé sur un rapprochement franco-anglo-allemand
Berlin, 25 septembre. — La Germania déclare qu’il faut soigneusement éviter dans la question du rapprochement franco-allemand tout ce qui pourrait éveiller la méfiance de l’Angleterre.
Les hommes d’Etat français ne songent nullement à renoncer à une entente avec l’Angleterre et l’Allemagne ; l’avenir de l’Europe doit être édifié sur la collaboration constante entre les trois grandes puissances qui se sont réunies à Locarno : Allemagne, France, Angleterre.
Les Réformes Administratives
Les Réformes Administratives
M. SARRAUT VEUT LES COMPLÉTER PAR LA DÉCENTRALISATION ET LA DÉCONCENTRATION
Paris, 25 septembre. — M. Albert Sarraut, ministre de l’Intérieur, va prochainement soumettre à la signature du Président de la République un décret tendant à compléter par la décentralisation et la déconcentration, les réformes administratives qu’il a déjà amorcées par la suppression d’un certain nombre de sous-préfets, secrétaires généraux et conseillers de préfecture.
M. Sarraut avait déjà, il y a une vingtaine d’années, alors qu’il était sous-secrétaire d’Etat au ministère de l’Intérieur, dans le cabinet Clemenceau, envisagé une série de mesures en ce sens, qu’il n’avait pu alors, faute de temps, réaliser.