Crisis in France
TAS, SAL
Ho w and why Paris politicians and Army generals in Algeria engineered the mutiny against the Fourth Republic, and how the Assembly rallied against the threat CRISIS IN FRANCE By Sal...
...authoritarian in outlook, they were determined to defend their privileged position by every possible means...
...The task of ending the mutiny may thus prove easier than many pessimists believe...
...It is an open secret that his friends in the Army organized the raid on the Tunisian village of Sakiet...
...The nomination of Morice was enough to defeat Pleveri—another sign of the times...
...In any case, the trade unions have warned that any Bonapartist move would unleash a general strike...
...Even the powerful and moderate federations of the North, which had always followed Mollet, became restless...
...He smashed the Communist revolt in the mining regions in 1948...
...But Pflimlin stood firm...
...The Communists abstained, but Pflimlin would have won even if they opposed him...
...His presence as Interior Minister is a guarantee not only against military insubordination, but against a Communist coup...
...It tolerated the manner in which the pressure groups organized by the Algerian colons tyrannized public opinion in both Algeria and France...
...Then General de Gaulle, silent for years, suddenly spoke...
...You have never seen a people less in the mood for adventure than the French of today...
...Imports have also been on the rise...
...He probably would have been invested with a slight majority, when suddenly the revolt broke out in Algiers...
...There was much confusion and soul-searching...
...By staying outside the government, the Socialists were reserving the same freedom of maneuver for themselves that the Independents had maintained for two years...
...The General himself relapsed into silence for several days...
...It managed to increase consumption and wage war in Algeria by increasing its deficit in the European Payments Union...
...So Pinay stayed out, and the Cabinet was enlarged only by the inclusion of three Socialists: Jules Moch, Albert Gazier and Max Lejeune...
...The moment approaches when the French people will have to pay the check...
...Rejecting "compromises" which would have given the mutineers all they asked, he succeeded after a few hectic days and nights in re-establishing the predominance of the legal authorities...
...Rene Pleven, a middle-of-the-roader, almost succeeded, but then he asked Andre Morice to become his Defense Minister...
...This behind-the-scenes fight between generals and civilians is still in progress...
...His only reply was a bill declaring a state of emergency and giving the Government extraordinary powers...
...French production and internal consumption have been increasing...
...In the movie houses, the newsreels draw 110 reaction from the public...
...It is clear that the revolt was organized, and that it received at least intellectual aid from some important French politicians...
...To be sure, the Government has made statements that sound very orthodox: Algeria will remain connected with France, we will not abandon Algeria, etc...
...His speech was a devastating report on the campaign in Algeria which leaves only one conclusion: The war has already been lost...
...They might have gone on this way forever had the conservatives kept their part of the bargain...
...At this point, the Army has Algeria in its hands...
...Ho w and why Paris politicians and Army generals in Algeria engineered the mutiny against the Fourth Republic, and how the Assembly rallied against the threat CRISIS IN FRANCE By Sal Tas Paris IT APPEARS—on the morning of May 19—that the coup of the Algerian generals and the initial effort of Charles de Gaulle to capitalize on it have failed...
...This was exactly what the mutineers had asked, and the communique was thus interpreted as tacit approval of the mutiny...
...The only hope of the mutineers lies in the pressure which their allies in France can bring to bear on the Government—and that seems insufficient...
...While the French Army cannot be forced into physical capitulation, the FLN rebels are getting stronger all the time and winning more and more support from the population...
...Now," he said, "it must be decided who rules France—the Assembly or the Algerian street...
...But when the Socialist party decided to stay out of any new government, it became clear that a major change in the political situation was under way...
...The Communists supported it even though Pflimlin announced that he would use the powers against them if necessary...
...Pflimlin also invited Antoine Pinay, the Independent leader, but Pinay insisted that Lacoste and Georges Ridault (MRP leader who sides with the "ultras" on Algeria) enter with him...
...In a short communique, he declared himself willing to assume the powers of the Republic...
...He had openly advocated negotiations with the Moslem rebels and even mediation by the rulers of Tunisia and Morocco...
...As this conformed to the demands of the Algiers mutineers, it would have meant complete capitulation...
...In the long run...
...But this is not the way power is taken...
...Moch is a staunch democrat, a brilliant organizer, and perhaps the firmest defender of public order France has produced...
...He may be used as a bridge to the generals...
...It was clear that the Assembly wished to depart from the conservative path...
...Thus, the Socialist decision to stay out of the government meant that another Algerian policy might be tried...
...only exports have declined...
...At this point it does not seem that he can come to power without the Assembly, and that is a hard nut for him to crack...
...If it cannot repair its links with France, its disintegration is a matter of months...
...One after another, the right-wing candidates for Premier failed...
...It tolerated Army interference in politics and in high policy, and at the same time charged the Army with a task in which the Premiers no longer believed...
...Mollet accepted...
...France can live without Algeria, but the Army in Algeria cannot subsist without the continued assistance of France...
...he spoke only of a national union headed by himself...
...the others have bowed to the power of the Army or the violence of the mob...
...But this gambit also has apparently failed...
...The Socialist decision to stay out of any future government was, first, a move to force the Independents to assume their responsibilities...
...But Gaillard fell after a prolonged campaign by the Right against the Socialists' special policy...
...France seems to be recovering slowly but steadily...
...Good or bad," he said, "France must have a government this night...
...Because the Communists and right-wing extremists voted against any government, the Socialists could not form a majority without the Independents, and vice versa...
...At once the atmosphere in the Assembly changed...
...Men like Moch, Andre Mutter and Pierre de Chevigne—three democrats with very hard hands—serve as a warning to the Communists, which they seem to have understood...
...The Radicals, heretofore so split, voted for him in a solid block...
...The Socialists offered Pflimlin support, but not participation...
...He waits, therefore, for his adherents to bring him power on a silver platter...
...Critical voices became louder and louder in the Catholic MRP, and in the Socialist party the minority which had always attacked the policy of Socialist Minister for Algeria Robert Lacoste now found a wider audience...
...From the start, the Cabinet crisis proved unusual...
...The vote was taken, and Pflimlin won...
...And, when this failed, it got a loan to patch up the deficit...
...It appears that Mollet was willing to accept this condition, at least as regards Lacoste...
...Gazier, a man with liberal ideas on Algeria, is a close friend of Mollet, and his choice shows that Mollet recognizes the need to change policy in Algeria...
...The Army, when it rebelled, was confronted by an administration in Algiers that lacked a head...
...He would be forced to make major concessions...
...The successive Cabinets of Guy Mollet, Maurice Bourges-Maunoury and Gaillard had been subject to continuing blackmail by the Independents, who were ever threatening to quit—and thus to destroy—the majority...
...I do not think the Communists would get a chance to turn such a strike into a Popular Front...
...Like a lover obsessed both with passion and the fear of rebuff, de Gaulle toys with Bonapartist ideas but cannot make the first move...
...The assault on parliamentary democracy has been repulsed, and above all other factors one must credit the firmness and integrity of the new Premier, Pierre Pflimlin, who has shown the pluck of a Truman...
...Besides, the country is completely calm...
...The latter had never had much experience with democracy...
...As Fiance Minister in the Gaillard Cabinet, he had advocated a strong fiscal policy to compel the French people to pay for the Algerian war themselves, without using foreign credits...
...It has chased the state officials who remained loyal to Paris...
...Once again the Palais Bourbon became a nervous beehive...
...The bill triumphed by an overwhelming majority...
...inclusion of the two die-hards could only lead to capitulation...
...The Cabinet crisis that followed the fall of Felix Gaillard last month at first seemed to be just another such crisis...
...After all, the Army has a war on its hands, and no war can be waged, let alone won, without the support of the nation...
...For more than two years...
...But the Army is cut off from its base logistically, financially, politically...
...Till now, the Algerian war has meant no pinch for the French people...
...Once the Army has been defeated —and it has left the politicians no other choice than to defeat it—the politicians will have their revenge...
...It was Pflimlin's stubbornness which gave substance to the National Assembly's resistance to the coup...
...you accept yours...
...The "ultras" organized a demonstration to protest Pflimlin's candidacy...
...But these statements were made in the face of the mutiny...
...Paris has fed the country with optimistic lies on the course of the war and on the Government's confidence in the Army...
...A sober, rather tightlipped Alsatian, he is more respected than loved...
...Now Pflimlin invited Mollet to become Vice Premier...
...Meanwhile, in Algeria, the generals were less than happy once the enthusiasm of the riot had died down...
...Lacking the courage to drop him openly, they decided to dump him by staying out of the Government altogether...
...In other words, France has largely been living on means from abroad...
...Nobody was fooled, and many in the Assembly were relieved, for the Algerian war had become less and less popular...
...the governments included everyone from the Socialists to the Independents...
...Sooner or later the Army will realize that a new French policy in North Africa is inevitable...
...The investiture of Pflimlin tended to obscure from the world a very significant speech by Pierre Closterman, an airman and well-known author who spent ten months with the Army fighting in Algeria...
...I accept my responsibility...
...One reason for this was the rapidly deteriorating economic situation...
...They had drawn the Army into their spiritual orbit and, having seen so many Paris cabinets capitulate to them, had become insolent and cocky...
...His nomination was as much a provocation to the Algerian colons as that of Morice to the Left...
...Until then, the various governments had been at the mercy of the so-called "ultras," who themselves obeyed the powerful French colons in Algeria...
...The Gaullist solution may have been blocked by the General's own inabilities as a politician...
...Then Pflimlin was put forth, a liberal Catholic who had repeatedly urged a new approach to Algeria...
...Then they declared that they had acted only for a government of national union under de Gaulle...
...Meanwhile, the fateful financial deadline—and with it, "the hour of truth—is fast approaching...
...The next day, people urged Pflimlin to enlarge his cabinet, then consisting of Catholics, Radicals and several Independents who had ignored their party's counsel to stay out...
...The Right, scenting the danger, tried to turn the tables by advocating a government of national union under conservative leadership...
...Pierre Mendes-France, who had long been voting against all governments to his right, at once grasped the situation...
...But every government since the election of this Assembly in January 1956 was brought down by the combined vote of Communists and conservatives...
...Lejeune, however, is a diehard with many friends among the officers...
...the Government would move with utmost ruthlessness, if only to rob the military of arguments...
...Nevertheless, many deputies— even among the Socialists—were willing to accept this...
...For a while, the Independents accepted the social policy of the Socialists while the Socialists executed the Algerian policy of the Right...
...And they began to push the civilian ultras into the background...
...At the same time, however, the Socialists had grown weary of the Algerian policy of Lacoste...
...Mutter and de Chevigne are both Rightists, who will cause Pflimlin difficulty when he starts a more liberal approach to Algeria, but they are also democrats who hate insubordination of any kind...
...Despite past skirmishes between the two men and their parties, Mendes-France led the Radicals behind Pflimlin...
...But the last loan, some $600 million, is rapidly evaporating...
...The Socialist party, many Center deputies and a large part of the country itself began to have doubts about the Algerian war...
...Mollet, who had privately expressed his own doubts, saw that he would have to move quickly to retain control of the party...
...Shocked when their demonstration failed to bring down Pflimlin, they began to speak double-talk: They were not mutineers, they loved law and order, they sought only national unity...
...But Pflimlin refused...
...Until that point, France had been governed by Left and Center parties with the support of the conservatives...
...Morice, who has been accused of having collaborated with the Nazis and having made money as a contractor for the Atlantic Wall, is known as a leader of the "ultras...
...I do not even think they will try such a thing...
...The mutiny and its immediate consequences must be digested first...
...Looking toward that time, many Socialist and Catholic deputies began to take another look at the Algerian problem...
...Both Massu and especially the more cautious Salan were manifestly wavering when de Gaulle's first communique appeared...
...The demonstration turned into a riot...
...Pflimlin also removed some generals from Paris and put them under house arrest, an effective warning to the Army in France not to try to place de Gaulle in power...
...the mutiny will have enforced the turn to a new approach to the Algerian problem...
...They know it would result in a resounding defeat for them...
...Should not Pflimlin efface himself before the historic figure of de Gaulle...
...All this, however, is a matter for calmer days...
...Once again the Premier stood firm...
...The Army associated itself with the demonstration, and Generals Raoul Salan and Jacques Massu denounced Pflimlin as a traitor...
...Before the Government delivers arms, materials and food to the mutineers, it will demand guarantees of obedience...
...November seems to be the fateful deadline...
...Lacoste, for example, contributed to the mutiny by refusing to return to Algeria during the crucial days when he was still caretaker Minister...
...Meanwhile, important change was taking place...
...Not that the deputies reacted with fervor...
...Now the Assembly has been forced to a showdown—not only with the Army but with all the abuses that have gathered in Algeria and with all the governmental lies of the past...
...But he did not condemn the mutiny...
Vol. 41 • May 1958 • No. 21
