SMASH DE GAU LLE

"ie SUNDAY : , HE basic fact about the French crisis is ‘that. the working class has not. been brought into effective action. against the threat of military dictatorship. “At every stage the leaders of the Left have acted too late. They have tailed disastrously. behind the _ bourgeois leaders while the latter were in conclave with de Gaulle ‘and smoothing his path to power. Behind the. parliamentary shadow-boxing there has been a massive act of treachery by Mollet as well as Pflimlin. An ‘atmos-pnere of intrigue’, says. The ‘Times, surrounded negotiations “that” were ‘one more-—perhaps the last—_ example of the muddy depth of French political waters’. if the democratic rights.of the French workers are extinguished, then a heavy share of the responsibility _ must lie on their ‘socialist?’ and ‘communist’ leaders. Instead of. arousing the workers to action, instead of barring de Gaulle’s road with a total general strike and the establishment of a workers’ government, they lulled them with the slogan of the defence of—the very elements who have been -intriguing with de Gaulle.

The fate‘of French Labour is of the deepest concern to the -whole ‘international working - class movement.

For de Gaulle’s come-back is part of a world - wide (Continued overleaf)

From Our Paris Correspondent, SEYMOUR PAPERT include FLN leaders (e.g., Ferrhat Abbas) and Liberal intellectuals (e.g. Jean Amrouche) and refiect a definite. current down below (e.g...I know a young MNA rank-and-filer who is a rabid ‘Gaullist’).

There is an irony in the situation. The French Government habitually declares that the nationalist leaders are not. ‘valid spokesmen’ for the Algerian. people.

- These. Algerian nationalists find that. Pflimlin is no valid spokesman for anyone, since he is incapable of carrying out any consistent policy whatever Séme of them hope that de Gaulle will at Teast be capable of making peace once convinced (by argument or by force) that he can’t win the war.

Key issue is Algeria Perhaps they are right: It would be rash to predict. what de Gaulle’ would do. But what is’clear is that for the French working class the key issue is between peace and war in - Algeria, not between Pflimlin and de Gaulle is Paris.

Whether the war is prosecuted by the one or by the other the workers will have to carry the can and the Government will need all the dictatorial powers to-make them—or perish in the attempt.

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