Marianne Debouzy was a student in France during the early years of the Cold War. She was interviewed for the COLD WAR series in April 1996.

On life in postwar France:

Life was quite difficult, I think, for many people, though of course I was in quite comfortable circumstances. And it's funny, because though I know that there was rationing and there were all sorts of problems, I don't have a really vivid memory of these problems. My feeling is that the war had been such an experience that in my memory, I have forgotten what happened afterward in terms of living conditions, because food during the war was a kind of obsession, so that anything after the war was relatively easy and hasn't really stuck in my mind, as far as I am personally concerned. But of course, lots of people had terrific problems, especially in those areas which had been destroyed or bombed or really had suffered from the war.

The one problem which I think everybody faced was the housing problem. The housing conditions were terrible, and it's hard to remember now that there were still lots of people who didn't have running water, who didn't have a bathroom, who lived in very cramped circumstances. And finding a place to live was a real harrowing experience for people [just] starting [out] in life. So that's what sticks in my mind as the first great problem in the after-war period. Otherwise, things were not that difficult compared to what we had gone through during the war.

On the appeal of the Communist Party in postwar France:

Most young people in my milieu were radicals and many of them, including very close members of my family, joined the Communist Party. I never did, because I'm somewhat of a skeptic.

I think the Communist Party came out of the war with a great aura, because many people who were members of the Communist Party had worked in the Resistance, in the railroads, in the mines, in the steel industry and in many other places. Many other people had been shot and murdered and when the war was over, I think that they had this glory from their action in the Resistance. Besides, I think that people were grateful to the Russians for having taken part in the war the way they did. And that added, I believe, to the aura that the Communists had -- especially as I think that people felt that a great part of the bourgeoisie had betrayed their republican ideals.

There was a lot of working class support for the Communist Party, but the support went beyond the working class. After the war, about 25 percent of the voters voted Communist, and of course many of these people weren't working class people and weren't Communists, but they voted for the Communist Party because it represented what seemed to be most progressive in social terms to many people in the country at the time. ...

I think that it was mostly idealism and maybe Utopianism that motivated people to join the Communist Party, which is now seen as a bureaucratic organization, which of course committed all sorts of crimes. I think that the people did not see it in that way in those days. ...

The appeal of communism to young people and to students was that of a hope that it was possible to create a classless society and to overturn the social hierarchies that existed in the old world. And I think that young people thought of communism in those idealistic terms and not in terms of political maneuvering or in terms of strategy. I think it was really idealism that motivated people. They felt that the old system had brought about fascism in several places, had brought the Vichy government in the French system -- because never forget that the Vichy government was a revenge over the popular front -- and they felt that in order to change things and to overturn social order, you had to build a completely different society. And communism seemed to be the hope of the world at the time.

On whether France could have embraced communism in the early postwar years:

France couldn't have become communist, because the Communists were only a minority. So in terms of numbers, I think it would have been difficult for the Communists to take over, though of course this was a fantasy that some people on the right and some Americans fought to become reality. I don't think that the politicians in power on the right would have let the Communists take over. And I think there were real obstacles to the taking over of power by Communists, and these obstacles couldn't have been easily overcome. And I don't believe that just after the war, [with] what people had gone through, [that] people were ready to cope with a civil war. And I don't think that this was a threat in any way.

I never believed that France could become Communist in those days, though of course the Communists represented a significant force in the political game, and the relationship of force was different from what it is today. But this is a long way from the taking over of power at a national level. No, I feel that this fear was unjustified and was politically useful, because it served the interests of certain ... people who thought that this threat enabled them to take a number of measures and steps.

We felt that this fear that the Red Army would take over, that the Communist Party would take over, was hysterical and not justified at all, because even though the Communists represented a significant force on the French political scene, they were only a minority. Besides, I don't think that the politicians or the political class in power would have let the Communists take over without doing something to prevent them from taking power. And it seemed to us quite unrealistic and politically motivated to think of things in those terms. So we felt that the panic was created in order to justify certain types of action and propaganda, but did not correspond to reality at all.

On the Marshall Plan:

I had mixed feelings -- and so did many people that I knew -- about the Marshall Plan. We didn't believe in philanthropy on the part of politicians. And most people I knew felt that the generosity of Americans was a self-serving one, in the sense that they thought of Europe as an outlet for their goods, as a market to export stuff. And we thought that we could see that [motivation] in the types of things that they wanted us to buy with the money that they lent us. And we were very skeptical about the disinterested motives of the Marshall Plan -- and we even thought that in some areas they were trying to prevent French industry from building up again, in order to export some of their goods and some of their stuff to Europe. So our view of the Marshall Plan was not a very positive one.

The Marshall Plan appeared to us as both an economic and a political enterprise. An economic [enterprise], because as I said, Americans were looking for markets and this was going to be a real problem. And a political [enterprise], because we felt that they thought that if they could bring up the living standard in Europe, there's hope that this will be a way to escape communism -- that people would be more satisfied and less dissatisfied with the present regime and that they wouldn't choose to change things. So we felt that the Marshall Plan was a political undertaking and also a cultural one, because there was a terrific cultural war being waged in France at the time. [I] remember, you know, accusations against Coca-Cola taking over and driving the French vineyard growers from business and Coca-Cola being a real poisonous drink that would bring France to its knees. So I think there was an economic, political and cultural side to the opposition to the Marshall Plan.

The Marshall Plan may not have been responsible for splitting the world, because there were [other] forces at work that did that. But I think it contributed to deepening the rift between East and West. Of course, the Russians might have expected to benefit from the Marshall Plan, but they didn't and then I think, from then on it was considered by us as a way of sort of splitting the world.