Paris: The Novel

government, but the Labour Party and the unions were soon ready to show their power. And in 1926, a huge general strike had brought Britain to a standstill.
    Was it the beginning of a revolution? All Europe had waited. If the British Empire fell to the workers, then the rest of the capitalist world could crumble.
    But once again, the phlegmatic British had displayed their lack of interest in ideas, their endless capacity to muddle through and compromise. The British bourgeoisie had come out, manned the buses, taken over the essential union jobs. Professional people, students, retired army officers were found driving trains. And they’d been allowed to get away with it. Jacques had even heard stories of an opposing line of strikers and British policemen organizing a football game between each other. He sighed whenever he thought of it. What could you do with people like that?
    For another decade, France had drifted. With a weak franc—good for the British and American visitors, but bringing inflation to the French themselves—the weak liberal governments of the Third Republic had tottered on, still opposed by the old guard of monarchists, conservative Catholics and military men. When America’s Great Depression hit Europe, French jobs were lost and wages fell.
    Jacques Le Sourd had known how to use the time, however. Endless quiet campaigning with the Socialist Party, writing and distributing pamphlets, talking with union men, visiting small works and large factories: this had been his life.
    “When the new revolution comes,” he would tell his son, “Paris will be the key. Not only because it’s the political and spiritual center of France, but because of the industrial workers here. When I was a young man,” he’d explain, “most manufacturing around the city was done in workshops and small plants. But now we have huge factories, producing thingslike cars, that didn’t even exist before.” More than once he had taken Max down to the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, which lay in a great loop of the river south of the Bois de Boulogne, and taken him through the gates into the Renault works. “The men here,” he told him, “will one day have the destiny of France in their hands.”
    Though Jacques always reminded his son that he was just one of many good socialists giving the lead, it pleased young Max to see how, in the huge car works and in smaller plants all over the city, his father was respected.
    And two years ago, the work of Jacques Le Sourd and his friends had been rewarded.
    At the start of 1934, the old guard had occupied the parliament and tried to stage a coup. Within days, the socialists and the communists of France cooperated in a general strike. Millions put down their tools. In Paris, the workers filled the streets. The country came to a standstill. The old guard were kicked out.
    “Now’s the time to play politics,” Jacques had urged. “All our efforts will be for nothing unless we can win political power.”
    A grand coalition had been formed. First the two great trade unions—the moderate CGT and the communist-led CGTU—had come together. Cleverer still, the political parties had come to a subtle agreement. His own Socialist Party and the French Communist Party had arranged that the communists would give silent support to the socialists, but take no part in any government, so as not to frighten off the bourgeoisie. With this reassurance, and a promise to respect private property and not to nationalize the banks, the left had been able to form a coalition with the bourgeois radical and liberal parties of the center.
    “Call it the Popular Front,” Jacques said, “and we could win an election.”
    He’d been right. By the start of 1936, the Popular Front was ready to fight an election. A month ago, at the start of May, the Popular Front had won, and Léon Blum, the Jewish leader of the Socialist Party, was prime minister of France.
    When Le Sourd had been asked if he’d like any government job, Max had assumed he would accept. But his father had surprised him.
    “There’s something more important for me to do,” he’d said. And despite his age, he’d thrown himself into another, feverish round of activity. Meetings with important union men, visits to factories: for threeweeks Max hardly saw him. But when he did, his father always said the same thing.
    “Now is the moment, Max. Strike while the iron is hot. Everything is possible, if we act fast.”
    His father was