De Gaulle and French Democrats

...The 1959 budget has hardly been outlined...

...I SHOULD also like to express my views on the present transitional Government, on the Algerian problem, and on the essentials of a democratic political and economic program...

...In line with this, French, German and Italian Socialists should seek to create a united continental labor movement-a modern, creative, effective force capable of meeting the needs of the age of atomic energy and automation...

...He is, moreover, indifferent to the content of political regimes provided they are efficient and capable of serving as instruments of national grandeur...

...He has a respect for the identity of other nations and their own vocations-which is what permitted him to understand and satisfy the national claims of the Africans...

...Big modern industrialization programs will ameliorate the economic situation somewhat, but they will not give employment to the surplus population...

...The democratic Left should demand, at least, the repeal of Article 16 of the new Constitution (which gives the President vast and ambiguous dictatorial powers in the event of emergency), and the transfer of the right to dissolve Parliament from the President to the Premier...

...Too often, they tend to a paternalism which tries to work for the people but not with them...

...There are two communities in Algeria, European and Moslem...

...Contact between these elected representatives and the delegates of the FLN, under the auspices of France, could finally lead to a genuine pacification...

...they are technicians named by the Government to lead our sons in uniform and have only the authority conferred by the Government...

...France should also, once the Algerian adventure is concluded, resume an independent policy in the Middle East...

...By way of contrast, the Algerians living in France, who were free to express their opinion, stayed away from the polls [the Algerian rebel FLN urged a boycott-Ed...

...He believes in the truth, poses political problems on a grand scale and in long-range perspective, respects efficiency and with the years appears to have acquired great patience and a sense of maneuver...

...At the same time, a permanent system of people's education should be set up, by the creation of such autonomous organizations as youth movements, youth houses, adult education institutes, discussion forums, etc...

...The rulers, technocrats or administrators, are efficient...

...Algeria was the cause of the fall of the Fourth Republic and remains the touchstone of the Fifth...

...The rational solution is a very broad autonomy within the framework of the federal community provided in the new Constitution, with France playing the role of arbiter between the two peoples who live on Algerian soil...

...He has now resumed his course and, over the last three months, has left many real problems sit while he has been remaking the Constitution...

...The French national radio should also be made independent of the state, on the model of the British Broadcasting Corporation...

...Where will we find the resources for investment and social welfare if the war continues...

...The colonels and General Staff represent no social reality...

...Academic freedom, too, should be expanded, with the autonomy of both of the universities and the public schools re-enforced...

...But they cannot be ends in themselves...

...The Army remained master of Algeria...

...servants and experts are capable of determining this general interest and of providing for the welfare of the incompetent and ignorant people...

...or else, if the Army wishes to speak, it should be represented by officers who are elected by the soldiers...

...He must affirm that power corrupts all rulers who take themselves seriously and lack sufficient sense of humor and sufficient understanding of the necessary limits of their posts...

...Both, in different degrees, have been placed under French cultural influence...

...But the root problems remain...

...once again, the Savior of the Republic...

...Furthermore, the economic development of the country demands large investments which can only come from France...

...both have an interest in maintaining close links with the mainland, because the wages of Moslem workers in France and the exports of agricultural produce are the main props of the Algerian economy...

...it continued to propagate the myth of integration, ran the electoral campaign with a brisk spirit, and obtained the inevitable results...

...if he believes in a united Europe, it is in order to realize his internationalism in a limited, concrete way, not in order to enlarge the scope of his nationalism...

...For the first time in its history, the actual balloting in Algeria was not fraudulent, but one cannot speak of a free election when the Nos couldn't campaign, various French newspapers and magazines were interdicted, the radio pushed one emphatic viewpoint, and blankets and sewing-machines were distributed as means of persuasion...

...Certainly de Gaulle, under whose direction French politics will now proceed, has a very different kind of appeal than that of the politicians who had recently been succeeding one another at the head of the Government...

...This should be done by the people themselves, within the framework of a multitude of actions undertaken with little equipment and little reward-and that kind of action can only be the work of a people ruling their own land and responsible for their own affairs...

...An administrative reform, decentralizing France along the lines of its natural socio-economic communities, is also in order...

...Supposing that the Algerian problem is solved, what should be the program of the democratic Left...

...The General had to accept the officers of the May 13 demonstration in Algiers, and his nomination of Jacques Soustelle as Information Minister involved very serious risks, indeed...

...the proportion of those who did vote was between 5 and 10 per cent, depending on the district...

...As for the latter, the French national radio has more and more abandoned its function of providing information and become the instrument of a mediocre propaganda which dishonors our country...

...His nationalism is very different from that of the petty bourgeoisie with their patriotic ribbons: it is based neither on sheer force nor on transient interest but on this sense of France's mission...

...Furthermore, despite the 98 per cent Yes vote on the referendum in Algeria, we should have no illusions about the will of the native population...

...on the contrary, it is necessary to group the peasants into cooperatives, led and inspired by trained agronomists, in order to increase the productivity of the land...

...and so all the failures of the Fourth Republic, the men whose intellectual and moral incapacity was responsible for the tragedy of these last years, have been united around him and are now trying to transfer to the Fifth Republic the spirit and the methods which corrupted the Fourth...

...During the war, they rallied to Retain and then successively collaborated first with the Germans and then with the Americans-even while most of the present leaders of the FLN were fighting in the Army of de Gaulle...

...France has little need of Algeria...

...Our major aim should be to increase productivity and modernization...

...He is a disinterested man without a shred of personal vanity, a man of great intellectual honesty...

...The economic policy of the Government has not been defined...

...But even the Europeans, despite their slogans, do not want genuine integration...

...What is necessary is the recreation of a local artisanry and the multiplication, in the Moslem villages, of small and middle-sized businesses, with an eye toward progressively creating a market for local consumption...

...Since he is linked to no social class, neither the bourgeoisie nor the peasants nor the workers, de Gaulle believes that the technicians, top civil ANDRE PHILIP, French dissident Socialist, is professor of law at the Sorbonne...

...What is particularly abominable, and sad for the veterans of the Resistance, is that this propaganda uses the heroic past of de Gaulle in the service of today's passionate partisanship...

...This time there can be no more talk of rallying, but only of choices, and this means that we will finally have an Algerian policy...

...How do we achieve such a solution...

...A democrat does not bow before what is or what may be...

...Local economic councils should be set up on the model of the national Economic Council and work in close cooperation with it...

...The danger in the Presidency of de Gaulle is an orientation toward an authoritarian and technocratic socialism...

...In reality, values do not emerge from facts...

...The principal, permanent conflict-which exists under every type of political regime-is that between the rulers and the masses...

...but all too often they demand disproportionate sacrifices from the population, imposing drab todays in the name of glorious tomorrows...

...Nevertheless, its operations this summer did suffer reverses, and Colonel Bigeard of the paratroopers has had much to say on the manner in which they were conducted, and on the fact that the Army had too many women, too much equipment, and too much brass and braid...

...Cult of non-partisan efficiency evades value judgments De Gaulle and French Democrats By Andre Philip IT IS somewhat ironic that the Constitution of the Fifth French Republic, approved in the September 28 referendum, does not provide for the direct election of the chief of state: The President of the Republic is to be elected by a vast college of parliamentarians and local notables...

...The extremely centralized national administration, a legacy of Napoleon's rule, should be drastically reformed...

...Where will we find the teachers for an expanded Algerian school system, when metropolitan France has a desperate teacher shortage...

...In a curious sort of neo-Rousseauism, he seems to believe that the juridical framework determines the conduct of human beings...

...There are at least as many Maltese, Greeks, Italians and Spaniards among them as Frenchmen...

...This "essential," which can be objectively ascertained, is for de Gaulle the national interest...

...At the same time, the public sector should be decentralized, even while it forms part of a general economic plan...

...The function of the democratic state is to assure peaceful equilibrium and temporary settlements, net in the name of an objective general interest, but as the result of the citizens' deliberate choice among values which are not susceptible to scientific determination but which are matters of faith...

...De Gaulle conceives himself basically as the arbiter and rallier of the nation-that is to say, as an uncrowned king rather than a Premier expressing the will of the majority party or the traditional President of the Republic, supervising the functioning of institutions...

...The budget, which was managed with great skill in the last days of the Fourth Republic, has been thrown out of gear again...

...At the time of France's Liberation, he avoided taking essential measures for the reconstruction of the country for almost two years while he concentrated his own activity-and the nation's interest-on constitutional reform...

...We have seen the necessity of social conflicts which must be adjusted and mediated...

...An economist by training, he became General de Gaulle's Commissioner of the Interior in 1942 and served as Finance Minister in the post-war Cabinet of Leon Blum...

...This was the case on June 18, 1940...

...the democrat explains and hopes to be understood...

...The kind of educational effort that is necessary must address itself to the local population, not merely transfer the pedagogical methods and habits of thought of the French primary school...

...Is there really a general interest, an "essential" national will susceptible to objective and scientific determination, which can make possible a permanent synthesis above and beyond particular interests and divergent concepts of society...

...The principle of time off for cultural activities should be developed to permit workers to participate...

...Social and national groups are indispensable for integrating individuals and creating the necessary frameworks in which their dignity can be affirmed...

...Yet in reality the referendum itself represented less the choice of a constitutional text than the popular election of General Charles de Gaulle as President...

...It seems to me that such a choice cannot be made in the name either of the national state or of any social group, but only in terms of a universal idea of Man...

...A great deal will depend on the conditions in which Algeria chooses deputies to the new National Assembly at the end of this month...

...Until the referendum, nothing was done...

...And this calls not for a rally but for a choice, not only among technically qualified experts but above all among conscious intellectuals, who try to consider the whole range of problems in terms of the values they accept...

...In reality, conflict is the rule of all societies...

...Either the Army leaders are named by the republican State and have no choice but to obey it, expressing their opinions only through organized channels...

...The Algerian Army can no longer say that its reverses are due to "the system" or to ill will in Paris...

...If he loses, he could be another Petain...

...For him, all antagonisms and conflicts of interest notwithstanding, there exists a general interest which touches all basic questions...

...There are two types of political leaders: The authoritarian commands and expects to be obeyed...

...he does not seek to subdue it, but rather to allow it to express itself peacefully while organizing procedures for conciliation and equilibrium...

...French democrats should be ready to cooperate with President de Gaulle, but should know the limits beyond which they cannot go, the points at which they must affirm their deepest convictions-even at the price of conflict, should that prove unavoidable...

...If he has little respect for other men, particularly his own followers, he does appreciate the type of disinterested spokesman who does not yield before him...

...Since this article was written, de Gaulle has offered cease-fire negotiations to the rebel military leaders, and spoken of an "ensemble" to include France, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.-Ed.] But in order to do this, the Army must be brought under control, a basic task which de Gaulle has just begun to undertake...

...He thinks this "essential" interest, independent of political beliefs and passions, can be objectively ascertained by all non-partisan people who are sufficiently competent...

...he is quite ready to make use of the very men who corrupted and destroyed the Fourth Republic, apparently considering them worthy once placed in another legal milieu and under his own authority...

...France should take the initiative in working out policies to stabilize world raw-materials prices, and to give effective international aid to the underdeveloped countries...

...On the economic plane, it is impossible to "integrate" into France a region larger than the mainland, where 90 per cent of the population is of a different religion or nationality, and where the living standard is a tenth of ours...

...His entire career has been devoted to his belief in the world mission of the "French idea...

...A democrat must express bis rejection of all such unanimity and of any cult of personality, no matter what his respect for this or that man...

...today it centers less around property than around power...

...I do not think so...

...Notre Dame la France, something different from Frenchmen, is his supreme value, conceived in Platonic fashion...

...The present Government does not express de Gaulle's own outlook, but reflects his adaptation to a transitional period...

...He possesses, for example, a highly-developed juridical sense, and takes institutions at their face value...

...An agrarian reform is necessary, but not one that creates small peasant holdings like our own...

...the latter, on the other hand, cannot live without France...

...In the first half of 1958, expenditures were 8 per cent over those of 1957, while receipts were 25 per cent higher than last year...

...Finally, the unification of the six West European nations now in the Coal and Steel Pool and Common Market should be pursued on the political plane...

...Nothing has been done to reorganize our exports...

...In each industry, old artisan techniques no longer adapted to the needs of our time should be modernized...

...We must express our uneasiness both at the practical passivity and the psychological evolution of this Government in recent months...

...In this belief, he is quite close to the managerial group which now governs the Soviet Union as well as the United States...

...2. Decentralization...

...A member of the Socialist executive committee for 12 years, he broke with the party leadership over Algeria in 1957...

...Our international policies should be directed against all forms of nationalism...

...A democrat is a universal humanist...

...For several years, we have been promised military victory, with no such result...

...The Algerian Europeans have always refused to do so...

...Administrative internment camps must be abolished, and firm sanctions applied against police or military brutality...

...On the other hand, he is beyond doubt opposed, from the same motives, to the idea of European supranationality, even though he desires very close cooperation among the independent European nations in order to build a third political force between the USSR and the U. S. Finally, de Gaulle feels that he himself can personify that "essential" national interest, captivating the masses in the service of a grand design which lifts them above their daily lives...

...our choices emerge from a will which goes beyond interests and passions, an ethic, a moral judgment which stands above all natural reality...

...then he, in effect, tvas France when the French people weren't...

...Under present conditions, one must wonder if even the limited program outlined by de Gaulle in his speech at Constantino can be realized...

...and the rate of economic expansion has begun to slow down...

...Too often, they sacrifice real men to considerations of pure prestige...

...It is scandalous to see the symbols and slogans of the Fighting French thus misused today-and often by old Vichyites...

...de Gaulle still has not established his authority over Algeria (or even, in certain matters pertaining to Algeria, over the mainland...

...Finally, in contrast to these men, we find a group of professional civil servants such as Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville who are well chosen...

...All doctrines which seek a definitive synthesis, whether they are idealist like Hegel's or materialist like Marx's, inevitably tend to become anti-democratic...

...During the summer, the balance of payments was favorable, thanks to tourism and the repatriation of capital...

...A democrat accepts the reality of social conflict...

...If he wins, he will be...

...On the other hand, wishing to respect the external forms of transition, he needed the big party chiefs...

...A new law should be adopted for the French Press Agency, transforming it from a Government agency into a cooperative controlled by the various newspapers and periodicals...

...He feels solidarity, under all circumstances and on every issue, with the man in whose person human dignity is denied...

...money and men have been provided without hesitation...

...But de Gaulle also has certain characteristics which will constitute a real challenge to French democrats...

...In accepting power under the circumstances that he did, he took an enormous gamble with his own place in history...

...The war continues, as does terrorism here in France...

...The countryside should be transformed by the diffusion of scientific agriculture and the encouragement of cooperatives within the framework of organized markets and stabilized prices...

...the state should be represented in its board of directors by the Minister of Education, not the Minister of Information...

...3. Constitutional reform...

...Finance Minister Antoine Pinay, enjoying the confidence of the rich, succeeded with his emergency loan...

...competent and efficient, they represent a hope for progress and effective action...

...Since the war, the Europeans have blocked the application of all French laws designed to conciliate the two Algerian communities, from the Statute of 1947 (conceived by Leon Blum) to the present day...

...The possibility of progressive evolution to independence must always be open...

...The right of habeas corpus must be restored, and freedom accorded to all defendants where there is no demonstratably serious risk of flight...

...Since de Gaulle became Premier, the military effort has been stepped up...

...The trade union movement should go beyond the phase of sheer wage demands, and become conscious of the fact that workers' living standards depend less on their nominal wage than on production, price and investment policies...

...he seeks to create new realities...

...We should also expand the responsibilities of the workers' committees in the factories and encourage producers' cooperatives and other forms of communal management, in order to give the workers the feeling that they are genuinely responsible agents in an economy coordinated in the common interest...

...But since July the pace of spending has been stepped up as a result of new expenditures for housing, scientific research, the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and, above all, Algeria...

...The restoration of Government authority over the Army in Algeria must be accompanied by a total reform of its structure and leadership, in order to avoid any future repetition of the May 13 adventure...

...It seems to me that it should concentrate on five points: 1. Civil liberties...

...He now thinks he can re-establish the authority of the state, reconcile France and Islam, place the country on the road to prosperity, and realize around his own person the unity of the people-even if it should prove necessary to use certain esthetic manipulations to rouse a unanimous enthusiasm...

...Although a certain number of Moslem veterans of the French Army and civil service still dream of assimilation, the majority of the youth (50 per cent of the population is under 18) have become conscious of their national existence...

...To be French means to accept sacrifice, if necessary, in yielding to what the majority decide is the general policy of France...

...The independence of the judiciary should be more firmly rooted...

...Nevertheless, we must face the realities...

...Local autonomy, departmental and regional, should be established, permitting power to be diffused among the people rather than concentrated in Paris...

...Under such conditions, Algeria cannot be treated as an internal affair...

...What was nominally a vote on institutions was actually the kind of personal mandate no French political leader has received in decades...

...The risk is that he will group around him the efficient but authoritarian experts and top administrators, and then use the resources of modern propaganda to make the masses ratify decisions taken by these knowledgeable few...

...Algeria is underdeveloped and overpopulated...

...Housing policy should be based on community planning and should seek, above all, to encourage decent rental accommodations...

...At every point, it seems to me, one must make not a synthesis but a choice: housing or the hydrogen bomb, Algeria or domestic economic expansion...

...If he succeeds, it may be possible to achieve the election of authentic representatives of the Moslem population with whom, in de Gaulle's words, it will be possible to do "the rest...

...Its forms change...

...4. Economic policy...

...This obliges us to achieve the same level, to reject the vulgarity and mediocrity which have characterized French political life in recent years, and to rediscover that sense of grandeur and creativeness which, at their birth, inspired the struggle of democracy and socialism against all forms of alienation...

...5. Foreign policy...

...French democrats should be grateful to de Gaulle for having posed political problems on that high intellectual and moral level which is his...

...In the face of these deeply-rooted attitudes of de Gaulle, more than in the details of the new Constitution, French democrats must redefine their beliefs...

...General de Gaulle is now attempting, with intelligence and courage, to restore freedom of expression and civilian control in Algeria, and to solicit varied candidacies in each district...

...They can never be integrated into metropolitan France so long as they wish-as they still do wish-to impose their own conceptions on a France in which they are but a minority...

...There can be no question of introducing family allowances in Algeria, when in fact birth control is necessary...

...The true drama of our time is between a monotheism which affirms the existence of supreme values and the polytheism, nowadays triumphant, of a series of groups which consider themselves absolute...

...Is there not a risk of integrating France and Algeria into a common inflation...