Le Figaro
- The Genevan Spirit and the League of Nations
- AGAIN THE OTHER DANGER
- HOW THE POWERS ARE CONFUSED
Le Figaro's front page of 8 October 1926 mixed impressions from Geneva with domestic politics. In a signed column, G. de Reynold described a hot, flag-decked Geneva full of foreign cars, café orchestras and English, Spanish and German voices, from which he crossed the bridge to the quiet, French-speaking old town, announcing that there were two Genevas. Henri Vonoven's political editorial urged the cabinet, meeting that morning on the cost of living and on wheat and coal supplies, to publicize its measures, arguing that rising prices were eroding ordinary people's satisfaction at the fall of the pound and that technical explanations were poor consolation. A third piece on the administrative reform insisted that decentralization, deconcentration and the transfer of powers to elected bodies were three distinct ideas, all driven by the search for economies.
This reading covers three excerpts from the upper part of the front page, and each one breaks off mid-sentence. The OCR is heavily corrupted, so body text in the middle and lower parts of the page is not transcribed. The exchange-rate table and the gold-stock item are also left out because their figures cannot be verified. The commentary gives no historical background for the administrative-reform article because the gathered sources do not cover the 1926 reform.
Translation
The Genevan Spirit and the League of Nations
…and the L. of N. I have just come back from Geneva. It was hot there, a heat like Nice. The streets had been watered. The houses were decked with flags: all sorts of flags; many exotic ones, American, Ethiopian, Japanese. On the quays, where one breathed the insipid smell of the Rhône — already the smell of the sea — there were orchestras in front of every café. Automobiles bearing, at the back, the initials of distant countries. On the pavements, people were speaking English, speaking Spanish, speaking German… I crossed the bridge to take refuge in the old town. There I found once again shade, silence, the French language, the Genevan accent, the Swiss flag. There are two Genevas, the Left Bank, …
AGAIN THE OTHER DANGER
DIRECTOR AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF. POLITICS. THE POLITICAL SCENE. AGAIN THE OTHER DANGER. On Wednesday the ministers had already turned their attention to the High Cost of Living. They will continue at this morning's Council; they will consider the question of wheat and coal supplies. It will be well for them not to be too discreet in their communiqués about the measures they have taken, for the rise in prices somewhat diminishes, among the broad public of ordinary people, the satisfaction caused by the fall of the pound. It is all very well to know that this general rise in prices is a foreseen, inescapable phenomenon; it is all very well to persuade oneself that it is with stabilization in view that domestic prices are being hoisted toward world prices; it is all very well to keep telling oneself that it is the successive inflations and the new taxes that are being incorporated into prices: these are insufficient consolations. The government has no doubt heard …
HOW THE POWERS ARE CONFUSED
POLITICS: FRANÇOIS COTY. THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. HOW THE POWERS ARE CONFUSED. The government has thrown the words decentralization and deconcentration to public opinion, both at once, for it to feed on. The reform it is contemplating must include both. It must, in addition, transfer certain administrative powers from officials to the elected authorities. These are three entirely distinct notions which, by themselves, contain almost the whole substance of the programme that the government is supposed to have defined and whose execution it has already begun. The principle that inspires the reform, let us not forget, is that of good housewives: economies. But a ques-
Context
Germany's entry into the League, September 1926
The Geneva that Reynold describes, crowded with flags, orchestras and foreign number plates, had just hosted one of the League of Nations' most closely watched Assemblies. On 10 September 1926 Germany formally entered the League, on a date that coincided with the twelfth anniversary of the Battle of the Marne, and it received a permanent seat on the League Council, while its rival for that position, Poland, obtained only a non-permanent seat. After Gustav Stresemann addressed the Assembly, French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand answered from the same podium with his call to put away rifles, machine guns and cannon and make way for arbitration and peace. The column as excerpted does not mention Germany. It sets the busy, multilingual quays against the old town across the bridge, where Reynold found French, the Genevan accent and the Swiss flag. Read alongside the September events, his 'two Genevas' place the international stage of the League beside a local Genevan identity, but the passage breaks off before he develops the comparison.
Geneva, Thoiry and the franc
The League season and the franc problem that Vonoven discusses were linked in Franco-German diplomacy. During the ceremonies surrounding Germany's admission, Briand and Stresemann met at Thoiry, where Stresemann pledged material support to stabilize the franc and Briand agreed to return the Saar Basin to Germany early, along with other concessions on the Rhineland. The scope of those resolutions was soon reduced by objections from the German and French governments. In Paris, Raymond Poincaré, absorbed by monetary problems, left foreign affairs to Briand, who pursued a policy of accommodation with Germany. The excerpted part of Vonoven's editorial, by contrast, treats the franc's recovery and the rise in prices as domestic matters of inflation, taxes and stabilization, and makes no reference to any foreign help.
Poincaré's cabinet and the fall of the pound
The ministers Vonoven addresses belonged to Raymond Poincaré's government, formed during the currency crisis of summer 1926. A retrospective account dates the decisive moment to 21 July 1926, when the pound had climbed to a record 235 francs and President Gaston Doumergue called on Poincaré to form a national-union cabinet uniting the right-wing parties and the Radical party. An official French biography dates his recall to 23 July 1926 and states that he immediately restored confidence and succeeded in stabilizing the franc. This explains the 'fall of the pound' in the editorial: a falling pound meant a recovering franc, which Vonoven treats as a real source of public satisfaction now being eroded by dearer food and fuel. His explanations for the rise in prices, namely domestic prices being lifted toward world prices ahead of stabilization and past inflations and new taxes passing into prices, are the newspaper's argument rather than an established account.
What followed for prices and the franc after 1926
Vonoven wrote while prices were still rising, but the stabilization he mentions did come. A later summary of Poincaré's policy states that tax receipts rose while consumer prices tended to fall, partly because of the franc's revaluation, though it does not date that turn precisely. The legal end point came on 25 June 1928, when the French government devalued the franc by four-fifths of its pre-war gold value, fixing it in law near the rate reached in 1926. The 'other danger' of the headline, dear living for ordinary people during a currency recovery, was therefore a transitional problem in a process that took almost two more years to complete.
Original
L'esprit genevois et la S.D.N.
et la S. D. N. Je reviens de Genève. Il y faisait chaud, une chaleur de Nice. On avait arrosé les rues. Les maisons étaient pavoisées: toutes sortes de drapeaux; beaucoup d'exotiques, américains, éthiopiens, japonais. Sur les quais, où l'on respirait l'odeur fade du Rhône, - déjà l'odeur de la mer, - des orchestres devant chaque café. Des automobiles avec, à l'arrière, les initiales de pays lointains. Sur les trottoirs, on parlait anglais, on parlait espagnol, on parlait allemand... J'ai passé le pont pour me réfugier dans la vieille ville. J'y ai retrouvé l'ombre, le silence, le français, l'accent genevois, le drapeau suisse. Il y a deux Genèves, Rive gauche,
ENCORE L'AUTRE DANGER
DIRECTEUR-RÉDACTEUR EN CHEF POLITIQUE LA POLITIQUE ENCORE L'AUTRE DANGER Les ministres, mercredi, s'étaient occupés déjà de la Vie Chère. Ils continueront au Conseil de ce matin; ils envisageront la question du ravitaillement en blé et charbon. Il sera bon qu'ils ne se montrent pas trop discrets dans leurs communiqués sur les mesures qu'ils auront prises, car la hausse des prix diminue un peu dans le grand public des petites gens, la satisfaction que cause la baisse de la livre. On a beau savoir que ce renchérissement général est un phénomène prévu, inéluctable; on a beau se persuader que c'est en perspective de la stabilisation que les prix intérieurs sont hissés vers les prix mondiaux, on a beau se répéter que ce sont les inflations successives et les impôts nouveaux qui s'incorporent aux prix, ce sont là consolations insuffisantes. Le gouvernement a sans doute entendu
COMMENT ON CONFOND LES POUVOIRS
POLITIQUE: FRANÇOIS COTY LA RÉFORME ADMINISTRATIVE COMMENT ON CONFOND LES POUVOIRS Le gouvernement a jeté simultanément en pâture à l'opinion publique les mots de décentralisation et de déconcentration. La réforme qu'il médite doit comprendre l'une et l'autre. Elle doit, en outre, transférer certaines attributions administratives des fonctionnaires aux pouvoirs élus. Ce sont là trois notions entièrement distinctes et qui, à elles seules, contiennent presque toute la substance du programme que le gouvernement est censé avoir défini et dont il a déjà commencé l'exécution. Le principe qui inspire la réforme, ne l'oublions pas, est celui des bonnes ménagères: les économies. Mais une ques -