Under Pressure

Watching its North African territories slip away. France at long last read its lesson. Demanding powers to establish local government and to give natives equal voting rights in its other colonies in "Black Africa," the Mollet government declared: "We must not permit ourselves to be outstripped and dominated by events, to yield subsequently to demands when they express themselves in violent terms." By an amazing 477 to 99, the Assembly gave the government the powers it had requested. For good measure, the government itself belatedly approved reforms for Algeria. Sample: 50-50 shares for Algerian sharecroppers (to whom heretofore landlords have allowed only one-fifth of their crop).

Across the Mediterranean. North Africans were giving a demonstration of the consequences of too-little-and-too-late.

P:In Algeria terror reached into Algiers itself when terrorists set fire to a garage in the heart of the city. Minister Resident Robert Lacoste arrived just in time to face down an angry committee of mayors who were threatening to strike if some 100 terrorists in French jails were not executed immediately, clapped a midnight-to-dawn curfew on the whole city. But the tide of hate ran on. In a single day 47 rebels and two Frenchmen were killed. The. dead bodies of another 100-odd victims were turned up in the course of the week. The president of the Algerian Assembly resigned, declaring: "The Franco-Musulman community has ceased to exist." French reinforcements poured into the ports, the first contingents of two new divisions ordered there from Germany. At week's end Lacoste hurried back to Paris to demand another 100,000 troops.

P:In Tunis cheering Moslems by the thousands turned out in the streets to welcome Nationalist Leader Habib Bourguiba back from Paris. In his pocket, the triumphant Neo-Destour party leader carried a protocol, in which the French government officially recognized his nation's independence. But even this triumph was not enough. "It is inconceivable," said Bourguiba, "that Tunisia on one side and Morocco on the other should enjoy independence while Algeria, which lies between them, remains under the colonialist yoke."

P:In Morocco Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef agreed at last to go to Spain to discuss freedom for Spanish Morocco. Franco is reportedly ready to hand over the Spanish zone in exchange for Spain's continued right to maintain its military bases there. Spanish government propagandists, busily preparing public opinion for the loss of its protectorate in North Africa, were still trying to pose as the friend of the Arabs. "We went there to fulfill a protective mission," said one release, "not solicited by us, but placed upon us by international agreements."

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