The Europeans Must Leave

The solution of the tortured "Algerian problem" has always largely turned upon the question: What is to happen to the 1,000,000 Europeans living among Algeria's 9,000,000 Moslems? In Paris last week a prestigious study group of French diplomats, economists and high civil servants provided a grim if unofficial answer: "Hundreds of thousands" will have to leave.

The group, which is called the Club Jean Moulin (after a French Resistance hero who killed himself when captured by the Nazis), offered its conclusions in a closely reasoned 50-page report.

P: Even if Algeria does not win independence, economic pressure will force the emigration of 100,000 Europeans. "This is such a cruel truth that neither the Fourth nor the Fifth Republic was able to look it in the face." Because of poor land and bad pay (the average yearly income of a Moslem farmer is only 3% of that of a European farmer), Moslems have fled the rural areas and now outnumber Europeans in every large city except Oran--which is only 51% European. In the cities, competition already is bitter for low-level jobs, and Moslems are winning it. If the government is to carry out its promise to bring Moslems into the civil service and administrative jobs, "new jobs will have to be found for tens of thousands of minor French officials." Alternatively, to keep poverty-stricken Moslems from deserting the farms, better land must be given them, which means taking it from some 30,000 European landowners.

P: Most of the Europeans were born in Algeria and have as much right as the Moslems to live where they were born, "but it is equally true that to maintain 1,000,000 Europeans there, France would have to use severe coercive measures to prevent Moslem progress."

P: The forced migration of the Europeans to France need not be economically disastrous. Up to 400,000 Europeans can be repatriated to France over a ten-year period without undue strain, the group argued. France has fewer inhabitants per square mile than Switzerland, and the population over the past ten years has risen at the low rate of only 7% (compared with 18% in the U.S.). The influx of new blood could be beneficial; Southern France in particular could use Algeria's skilled farmers. West Germany and The Netherlands both absorbed proportionately more refugees from East Germany and Indonesia, and prospered. Even the estimated $360 million needed to indemnify the Europeans for possessions left behind in Algeria represents at the most the cost of 18 months of war in Algeria.

Neither the French government nor the F.L.N. rebels commented publicly on the Club Jean Moulin report. But a source close to Elysee Palace hinted that President Charles de Gaulle agreed with most of its findings.

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