Paris after the Liberation 1944-1949

political objective of the left was the approval of a draft Constitution for the future Fourth Republic.
    The Socialists, partly influenced by their traditional and visceral anti-clericalismon the subject of education, aligned themselves with theCommunists against the MRP. This was a dangerous development, especially when they were still trying to establish their independence from the Communists. As a result the referendum to be held on 5 May 1946 took on a far greater significance than the issue at stake, and its unexpected outcome strongly influenced the subsequent elections planned for 2 June. The country, and the Communists themselves, began to see this plebiscite as a vote of confidence in the French Communist Party.
    The spring of 1946 saw an upsurge of activity on the right. As early as 4 February, General Billotte approached Duff Cooper, hoping that His Majesty’s Government would back a ‘new political movement, a kind of centre party mainly with a view to fighting socialism’. Billotte’s use of the phrase ‘centre party’ rather strained the usual understanding of the term.
    Representatives of new right-wing parties also hurried round to the American Embassy. ‘I have the honour to report,’ wrote Caffery, with a hint of acerbic relish, ‘that the Embassy has been approached by various groups, all, according to the promoters involved, enamoured with the United States. However, in each case it has developed during the course of the conversation that what they specifically had in mind was a subvention in one shape or another from the State Department.’
    In electoral terms, the new right-wing parties amounted to very little. The largest was the Parti Républicain de la Liberté, an ‘anti-Communist vehicle’ to bring together elements from the pre-war right and supporters of Marshal Pétain. It had a following in Paris, but was very weak outside the city.
    At this time when, in Caffery’s words, the situation was becoming ‘favourable to chaos and to men on horseback’, royalist hopes swelled. The Comte de Paris believed that he could unify the nation. Posters appeared on the walls in Paris: ‘
Le Roi… Pourquoi pas?
’ – a curiously diffident message in an age of political passion.
    Colonel Passy was strongly against the idea of Americans or British helping right-wing groups. At a dinner with Brigadier Daly, he rightly identified the Socialist Party as the best political force to resist the Communists. But on other matters he was less prescient. The chief danger to France at the time consisted of right-wing coup attempts,which, however amateur and unlikely to succeed, risked playing straight into the hands of the Communists.
    The main danger of trivial events getting out of hand stemmed from the fact that in France everyone in military and official circles seemed to be spy-obsessed. It was a legacy of the Occupation and the Resistance. ‘
C’est la clandestinité qui mène l’affaire,
’ a French intelligence chief acknowledged to a British colleague.
    But the real problems being faced by British intelligence were in London. In 1944 Kim Philby, who later turned out to be one of the Soviet Union’s star spies, had been put in charge of the new anti-Soviet department in SIS. When Muggeridge sent back to London a report, passed to him by a ‘Colonel A’ (presumably Colonel Arnault) on the extent of Communist infiltration in the French government, an instruction came back from Philby to disregard any material from this clearly unreliable source. Philby then sent Muggeridge a questionnaire on the measures being taken by the French against Soviet infiltration. Ironically Passy’s organization, then under attack as an anti-Communist stronghold, thought it wiser not to cooperate. Even so, Passy considered most of the questions ridiculously simple – some of the answers, he said, could be found in the telephone directory. He and Soustelle suspected a British double-bluff.
    Philby came to Paris at least twice. He came first in the winter of 1944–5 to visit Muggeridge, and stayed with him at the Avenue de Marigny. He paid another visit in May 1946. ‘Philby, the Communist specialist of MI6, came to see me,’ recorded Duff Cooper. ‘He hadn’t much to say that I didn’t know already.’ Yet Philby muddied the waters once more. Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, who had revived part of her ‘Ark’ intelligence network from the Resistance for use against the Communists, had kept in touch with