Breathing Spell

Eighteen years ago this month, a slim, ungainly French officer who had taken refuge in London broadcast a call to arms that jolted his countrymen out of numb acceptance of defeat into a renewed fight against Nazi Germany. Last week, on the anniversary of that historic appeal, its author, still clad in the uniform of a brigadier general, rolled up the Champs-Elysees in an open limousine. 'As he passed, his arms flung wide in a giant V for victory, hundreds of thousands of voices kept up a continuous roar of Vive De Gaulle.

At the Arc de Triomphe, De Gaulle paused briefly to rekindle the flame at the tomb of France's unknown soldier. Then, re-entering his car, he moved on across the Seine to Mont Valerien, a historic fort that overlooks a tiny, sandy valley where 4,000 Frenchmen were executed during the Nazi occupation. His face working with emotion, De Gaulle relit the flame of the resistance, prayed for a few moments at the tomb of the 16 resistance heroes buried in the fort. When at last the defiant strains of the Marseillaise rolled out over the valley, there was unabashed weeping in the crowd.

Coming as they did from the citizens of radical Paris, the thunderous cheers that greeted De Gaulle on the Champs-Elysees and Mont Valerien constituted an impressive vote of confidence in his government that was in marked contrast with Paris' reluctant acceptance of his return to power. And to confirm the results of this emotional plebiscite, the French Institute of Public Opinion found that all over France 54% of those questioned regarded De Gaulle's return to power as "a great good" and only 9% thought it "very bad."

Even more impressive was the startling success that Finance Minister Antoine Pinay's public loan (TIME, June 23) was having among a people traditionally wary of government securities. In a single day last week Frenchmen parted with a record $18 million in hoarded gold to buy the new bonds, and by week's end the amount of gold converted into bonds totaled $52 million. "If this keeps up for a few weeks," grinned Pinay, "we may have to enlarge the vaults of the Bank of France."

The New Officer. If this rare surge of national confidence ultimately may end in bitter disappointment, it will not be for want of trying by Charles de Gaulle. With the concentration of a new officer straightening out a demoralized command, De Gaulle was applying himself to shortcomings in French national policy that no one had seriously tackled in years. Items: P: Minister of Construction Pierre Sudreau got two months to prepare a program to build rental housing, so that France will no longer be the only major nation that has made no real dent in its postwar housing shortage. P: Minister of Justice Michel Debre was charged with the task of reorganizing France's hodgepodge judicial structure. P: Ministers Louis Jacquinot, Jean Berthoin and Andre Malraux were ordered to devise a scheme for financing long-range scientific research. P: Minister of State Guy Mollet was assigned to head a task force to simplify the structure of French municipal government.

P: To reassure France's allies--and perhaps remind them of France's international bargaining power--De Gaulle himself arranged to meet with Britain's Harold Macmillan on June 29-30 and with John Foster Dulles on July 5.*

A Visit from the Boss. Most important of all. De Gaulle was working to reverse the disastrous course that previous French governments had followed in North Africa. He plans another three-day tour of Algeria beginning July 2, and this time, it was announced, he would take along ex-Premier Mollet, who retreated from Algiers under a shower of rotten tomatoes in February 1956, in the first successful defiance of Paris by Algeria's European colons.

De Gaulle's invitation to Mollet was a clear challenge to the colons. With equal firmness De Gaulle cut through the trivialities that had been stalling negotiations for withdrawal of French troops from Tunisia. Abandoning all claims to a disputed radar station, he accepted the Tunisian terms immediately. Seven thousand French infantry and armored .troops will evacuate 16 Tunisian bases and posts within the next four months, leaving only the naval base of Bizerte in French hands.

No Time for Bands. The Tunisian settlement was a much needed boost to those Arab moderates who hope to end the Algerian war. Two months ago, in a conference at Tangier (TIME, May 12), Algerian rebel leaders were received as heroes by their Moroccan and Tunisian colleagues, easily won Moroccan and Tunisian backing for a threat to create an Algerian government in exile--a step which if taken would almost surely force France to break off relations with Morocco and Tunisia. Last week, flying into Tunis for a second North African conference, a four-man Algerian delegation led by onetime French Deputy Ferhat Abbas found no bands, no government ministers, no comfortable American automobiles to greet them.

And it soon became clear that neither Morocco's Premier Ahmed Balafrej nor Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba had any intention of consenting to the formation of an Algerian rebel government for the time being. With Ferhat Abbas sitting glumly beside him under a canopy bedecked with red Tunisian flags, Bourguiba pointedly boasted of the concessions Tunisia had won from France by relying on negotiations rather than force. "Above all," said Bourguiba, "the struggle is a war of nerves to impress the adversary, to make him think, to help him find the path of truth."

Optimistically, Middle-of-the-Roader Bourguiba conjured up a vision that sounded remarkably like the French North African federation scheme favored by De Gaulle. Said Bourguiba: "De Gaulle enjoys a liberty of action . . . This new orientation has inspired us with increased confidence in France . . . Today I say to France and to Frenchmen that the unity of North Africa can be achieved in cooperation and friendship with France. We hope it can be achieved with her, in agreement with her, without the intervention of other countries."

Along with Bourguiba's olive branch went somber warnings that Algeria must have independence within "a very limited time." But for the first time in nearly four years, Arab leaders had sufficient trust in a French government to give it a breathing spell in which to work toward a peaceful solution.

*De Gaulle last week offered the Cross of the Order of the Liberation to his old wartime sparring partner, Sir Winston Churchill. The order is held by only two heads of state--Morocco's Mohammed V and Dwight Eisenhower.

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