Paris After the Liberation_ 1944 - 1949 - Antony Beevor [148]
In France, a ‘new resistance’ to Communist infiltration had become apparent before Truman’s speech. Ministers were beginning to reverse the tide in several ministries as well as in the Paris police.
The Socialist Minister of the Interior, Édouard Depreux, a great admirer of Léon Blum, exploited every opportunity to reduce Communist influence in the administration. He had removed the Communist Prefect of the Haute-Vienne from office in July 1946, having arranged financial compensation. His greatest preoccupation, however, remained the Paris police, which the Communists had infiltrated during and after the Liberation. Depreux blamed Charles Luizet, the Prefect of Police appointed by de Gaulle in August 1944, for not having done enough to counter the process. Yet Luizet could have done little to protect the force against the ferocity of the Communist-led purge committee, or their policy of replacing disgraced policemen with men of their own. Depreux’s chance came when a scandal blew up involving that notorious double-dealer Joanovici,* who had been bribing police officers by playing poker with themand losing most generously. Joanovici, who had testified against his former comrades in the Bonny–Lafont gang, had been as happy to make money with the Communists as with the Nazis. The minister promptly gave orders for the arrest of two leading Communists in the police who had links with him, a risky course, with the lack of evidence at the time. The Communist press exploded in anger, but Depreux kept his nerve.
His other move was to replace Luizet by Roger Léonard, a strong anti-Communist reputed to be a ‘very effective administrator’. During the Occupation, Léonard had been a Vichy official, but was fortunate to have been sacked by his superiors early enough to escape the attentions of a purge committee at the time of the Liberation. Just to be sure, the American Embassy reported, he had even pretended to be a fellow-traveller ‘for reasons of temporary political opportunism’.
Forcing back the inroads of Communist infiltration was just one side of Depreux’s strategy. What he and his colleagues feared most was an attempted coup from the right, which would allow the Communists to cast themselves as the saviours of Republican liberty. Depreux knew that, above all, he must not allow himself to be portrayed as purely anti-Communist. He therefore made conspicuous moves against right-wing plotters, including such cynical manoeuvres as the arrest of a group of priests and nuns who had been sheltering collaborators.
Depreux and his colleagues had good reason to be worried about a plot from the right playing into the hands of the Communists. In May 1947, the American Embassy was informed that two colonels from the US army in Germany had been offering to arm rightist groups. This shadowy affair was hushed up. Depreux, however, made another plot public, a conspiracy known as the ‘Plan Bleu’, because the document was on blue paper.
The police had been amassing evidence for several months, but Depreux waited for the right moment before making anything public. The opportunity came in June 1947, shortly after the Communists left Ramadier’s government. Depreux’s timing of the announcement that a plot against the Republic had been thwarted was aimed at elements within his own party. The left wing of the Socialist Party wanted to attack the anti-Communist stance of their ministers.
The details of the plot itself were too sketchy to be really convincing. It apparently involved General Guillaudot, the Inspector-General of the Gendarmerie Nationale, and several veteran anti-Communists including Loustaunau-Lacau, the only member of the Resistance to have testified on behalf of Marshal Pétain.