"Kif-kif la Fran

One of the big reasons for Charles de Gaulle's electoral triumph in Algeria last November was his giving Algerian women the vote. The woman who took most advantage of the offer was Nefissa Sid Cara, a schoolmarm who is the sister of a well-known pro-French Moslem politician. Running for the French National Assembly, she allowed no men to attend her meetings, and she had but one plank to her platform. "We want French law," one weeping woman told her. "My husband left me." "My husband took away my sons," said a veiled woman. "You must give them back to me." Nefissa's answer to those who clutched at her arms and clothing: "Vote for me, and I will get a new law passed giving us Moslem women our rights."

Despite more than a century of French rule, the Moslem women of Algeria had few privileges and fewer rights. Having promised to respect Moslem customs, the French blinked at the practice of marrying off twelve-year-old girls (the right of djebr), often to men they had never seen. In classic Koranic fashion, husbands could get rid of a wife simply by saying, "I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you," or by tearing up the marriage papers ("breaking the cards," in Algerian slang). A woman had no legal rights over her children and could be cut off without a sou of alimony. Gradually, from behind innumerable veils, the cry went up: "Kif-kif la Franc,aise" (roughly: Let us be just like the French lady).

Elected to France's Assembly, Nefissa Sid Cara pored over recent Tunisian and Moroccan codes that have liberalized the rights of women; she consulted religious authorities and legal experts; she agitated in Paris. Last week Nefissa's reforms, having been approved as one of the last of 300 decrees issued before the De Gaulle government's four-month emergency powers expired, became law. Only the Moslem Mozabite sect, whose 40,000 members are not quite ready to be yanked out of the Middle Ages, was exempted from it. For the rest of Algeria, compulsory child marriages will be forbidden, and courts will rule on divorce, custody over children and alimony. Though Nefissa's bill does not outlaw polygamy, it does the next best thing: an Algerian girl will be free to say no to a man who already has a wife.

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