Guy Mollet, the son of
a textile worker, was born in Flers, France,
in 1905. A member of the French Socialist
Party he taught English at Arras Grammar School.
During the Second
World War he joined the French
Resistance and
three times was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo.
In October 1945, Mollet
was elected to the National Assembly for Pas-de-Calais. The following
year he became Secretary-General of the French
Socialist Party and served as a minister in the government headed
by Leon
Blum in 1946.
Mollet became prime minister
of a coalition government in January 1956. Later that year
President Gamal
Abdel Nasser
of Egypt
announced he intended
to nationalize the Suez Canal. The shareowners,
the majority of whom were from Britain
and France,
were promised compensation. Nasser argued that the revenues from the
Suez Canal would help to finance the Aswan Dam.
Anthony
Eden, the British
prime minister, feared that Nasser intended to form an Arab Alliance
that would cut off oil supplies to Europe. On 21st October,
1956, Mollet, Anthony
Eden and
David Ben-Gurion met
in secret to discuss the problem. During these talks
it was agreed to make a joint attack on Egypt.
On 29th
October 1956, the Israeli Army, led by General Moshe
Dayan, invaded Egypt.
Two days later British
and French bombed Egyptian airfields. British and French troops landed
at Port Said at the northern end of the Suez Canal on 5th November.
By this time the Israelis had captured the Sinai peninsula.
President Dwight
Eisenhower grew
increasingly concerned about these developments.
On 30th October he decided to take action and announced
he was going to suspend
aid to Israel in protest against its invasion
of Egypt. The
following day Eisenhower's secretary of state, John
Foster Dulles,
criticised Britain and France for trying to take the Suez Canal by
force.
On 1st November
representatives from the United States and the
Soviet Union at the United
Nations joined forces and demanded
a cease-fire. The British and French vetoed a cease-fire in the Security
Council but the General Assembly passed it by a vote of 64-5 vote.
Faced by a united international community, the governments of Britain,
France
and Israel agreed
to withdraw. They were then replaced by UN troops who policed the
Egyptian frontier.
Gamal
Abdel Nasser
now blocked the Suez Canal.
He also used his new status to urge Arab nations to reduce oil exports
to Western Europe. As a result petrol rationing had to be introduced
in several countries and two months after the invasion, Anthony
Eden was forced
to resign from office. Guy Mollet
and his government collapsed in May 1957.
Over the next fourteen
years Mollet attempted to organize a unified socialist opposition.
However, unable to regain power, Mollet retired from public life in
1971.
Guy Mollet died in 1975.
(1)
Harold
Wilson, Memoirs: The Making
of a Prime Minister, 1916-64 (1986)
Eden and Lloyd went to
Paris to meet the French. Eden accepted pressure from the French Premier,
Guy Mollet; Lloyd was desperately worried. Mollet and Ben-Gurion,
the Israeli Prime Minister, met at Sevres. They were joined by a 'responsible
British minister', identity not disclosed, but said to be 'an old-fashioned
family lawyer' - it was, in fact, a still unhappy Selwyn Lloyd. The
plan was for Israel to attack Egypt, and then for Britain and France
to appeal for a cease-fire and to intervene in the isthmus.
At the meeting in France
on 1 October, there was still doubt whether Britain would join in,
yet her bombers, a component in which France was deficient, were essential
to the operation. The second meeting took place in Paris on 21 October.
The proposal put to the Israelis was that Britain and France would
demand that both Egypt and Israel should withdraw from the Canal area.
If either refused, Britain and France would intervene to keep the
Canal open. The plan was that Israel should attack the Canal zone
while Britain and France
should go in as policemen, demanding Israel's and Egypt's withdrawal,
and would then take over the Canal.
(2)
Statement issued by Guy Mollett and Anthony
Eden (31st
October, 1956)
The Governments of the
United Kingdom and France have taken note of the outbreak of hostilities
between Israel and Egypt. This event threatens to disrupt the freedom
of navigation through the Suez Canal on which the economic life of
many nations depends. The Governments of the United Kingdom and France
are resolved to do all in their power to bring about the earliest
cessation of hostilities and to safeguard the free passage of the
Canal.
They accordingly request
the Government of Israel to stop all warlike action on land, sea and
air forthwith; to withdraw all Israeli military forces to a distance
of ten miles east of the Canal.
The communication has
been addressed to the Government of Egypt, requesting them to cease
hostilities and withdraw their forces from the neighbourhood of the
Canal and to accept the temporary occupation by Anglo-French - forces
of key positions at Port Said, Ismailia and Suez.
The United Kingdom and
French Governments request an answer to this communication within
twelve hours. If at the expiration of that period one or both Governments
have not undertaken to comply with the above requirements, the United
Kingdom and French forces will intervene in whatever strength may
be necessary to secure compliance.
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