The Wand & the Word

Algeria, technically a part of metropolitan France since 1848, was the only part of France to hold no election this week. But it was not forgotten: Algeria was the central, most heated issue in the French election.

From the Basses-Pyrenees to the Haut-Rhin, from the Pas-de-Calais to the Bouches-du-Rhone, voters had good reason to think of Algeria: many of their sons and husbands are there. Unlike the war in Indo-China, where only volunteers were sent (many of them Germans in the Foreign Legion, or African Negroes), the police action in Algeria has been largely waged by French conscripts--reservists called back to the service, and draftees held overtime.

Yes, Yes Men. Politicians, quick and lusty to respond to the voters' concern, blamed each other for what was going on in Algeria. None attacked the French record as bluntly as ex-Premier Pierre Mendes-France. In 1947 France gave Algeria's 9,000,000 Moslems a sort of second-class citizenship by allowing them to elect the local legislature's Second College, which, in turn, sent 15 delegates to the French National Assembly. The Europeans in Algeria, who number only 1,200,000, also got 15 seats.

This was bad enough, but it was not all. French authorities rigged the Arab elections in favor of stooges whom the Arabs call beni oui ouis (yes, yes men). Mendes was more candid about this than any top French politician had ever been before. "We discredited democratic procedures. The ballot is counterfeit. The ballot boxes are stuffed. The winners are picked by the government."

Feed, Don't Fight. As his solution to Algeria's troubles, Mendes called for freeing political prisoners held without trial, doling out free food ("It's cheaper than fighting"), honest elections within six months and ultimate splitting up of vast colon estates. Then, taking a lesson from the U.S. 1952 campaign, Mendes capped his proposal by dramatically offering to go to Algeria and stay as long as necessary "to surmount all obstacles."

Unhappy at Mendes' remarks, the other leading candidates unhappily had little else to offer. Growled Algeria's Governor General Jacques Soustelle, whom Mendes, as Premier, had appointed: "No magic wand can settle the problem at one stroke." Lacking a magic wand, politicians groped for a magic word. To lameduck Premier Edgar Faure, that word was integration, which lies somewhere between assimilation, now abandoned as an impractical dream, and federation, which implies wholesale remodeling of the French Union. To Foreign Minister Antoine Pinay, federalism was the magic word: it would bring "solidarity within diversity."

In Algeria itself, the month's casualties were the highest yet. Premier Faure promised Governor Soustelle a 60,000-troop reinforcement. Rebels now had control of thousands of square miles, including a 50-mile strip of coastline. Out of fear of the rebels, or in support of them, the Moslem municipal councilors in the cities of Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Philippeville and Bone resigned, setting off a mass flight from office among 5,000 Moslem officials in Algeria.

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