The Pause That Arouses

Italy had been conquered (TIME, Aug. 22) and the red army was advancing on Paris; but France's Communists were anything but cordial. The perky fire-engine-red trucks that bowled along the Champs Elysees, stopping now at this bar, now at that, were not the spearhead of a force from Moscow. They were agents of U.S. capitalism making deliveries of CocaCola to Paris' cafes in a new postwar sales offensive.

France's Communist press bristled with warnings against U.S. "Coca-Colonization." Coke salesmen were described as agents of the OSS and the U.S. State Department. "Tremble," roared Vienna's Communist Der Abend, "Coca-Cola is on the march!"

Taste & Toxicity. Last November the Reds introduced a bill into the French Assembly to "prohibit the import, manufacture and sale of Coca-Cola in France, Algeria and the French colonial empire." A Communist deputy shouted at France's Health Minister: "Are you going to permit the poisoning of French men & women by this toxic American drink being sold on the grands boulevards of Paris?" Health Minister Pierre Schneiter answered calmly: "Let the French drink what they like and trust their good taste." That good sense carried the day and the Communist bill was defeated.

Meanwhile, the Communists had found unexpected allies: France's wine growers and the complacently chauvinistic members of Premier Bidault's own M.R.P. Paris' L0 Monde spoke for the conservatives: "What the French criticize [in Coca-Cola] is less the drink itself than the civilization, the style of life of which it is a sign and ... a symbol. . . red delivery trucks and walls covered with signs, placards and advertisements ... It is a question of the whole panorama and morale of French civilization."

Other smug but nonpartisan Frenchmen took up this battle cry. "I like Coca-Cola," wrote a M. Dreyfus to the Paris Herald, "but [Coca-Cola's advertising] has ripped deep into what the French treasure most--their language. One now sees posters and trucks bearing the inscription 'Buvez Coca-Cola.' You can say 'Buvez du Coca-Cola' or 'Buvez le Coca-Cola' but you cannot say 'Buvez Coca-Cola' because this is pidgin French."

Last week, reinforced by their new allies, the Communists tried again. This time their bill did not mention Coca-Cola by name. It gave the Health Minister power to forbid the sale of beverages containing "certain vegetal products," i.e., those in Coke. The bill, with both Communist and M.R.P. support, passed by 366 to 202.

Lafayette & a Belch. In New York, James Aloysius Farley, generalissimo of Coca-Cola's overseas expeditionary forces, sizzled like a shaken Coke bottle on a hot stove. "Coca-Cola wasn't injurious to the health of the American soldiers who liberated France from the Nazi," he exploded. "[It] followed their guns on the beachheads . . . I'm afraid General Lafayette would think this decision was small reward . . . This might be the straw to break the back of the camel hauling billions of American dollars to France."

In Washington, State Department officials made plans to carry the case of Coca-Cola right into the Quai d'Orsay, headquarters of French diplomacy. France's ban, State was prepared to point out, was contrary to Franco-American trade agreements which provided for low U.S. tariffs (40^ to $1.25 on a gallon) on most French wines in return for similar French concessions on soft drink concentrates.

If Coca-Cola is barred from France, U.S. Congressmen might be tempted to raise tariffs on French wines. One Congressman expressed his views on the matter. "Coca-Cola," said Representative Prince H. Preston Jr., from Coke's home state of Georgia, "would give the French something they have needed since the war ended, and that is a good belch."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.