ALGERIA BEHIND THE ALGIERS INSURRECTION

On Sunday, January 24, European activists tried to reproduce their action of May 18, 1958, which set in motion the events which rapidly brought the Fourth Republic to its knees. That has been their conscious and declared aim since disappointment with de Gaulle came .to.a head last September, following his policy statement on ‘self-determination’. The great dissimilarities between the two situations suggest that this time the movement will be scotched in Algiers itself; but it marks a landmark in the history of the Fifth Republic and reveals, if only for an instance, the bottomless pit which will one day swallow it up.

The Europeans of Algiers have lived for over five years in a heady and tense atmosphere compounded of unprecedented material prosperity and civil war. They have feared that a sell-out from Paris would snatch away their privileges just as much as they have feared the bombs and bullets of the nationalist fighters. In their imagination looms up the dire choice : the suit-case or the coffin. How to avoid that choice has been their great political problem: hence, when de Gaulle semed to offer a third way they were ready to grasp it with both hands. When doubts arose, many of them were ready to prepare and arm themselves to fight another betrayal.

Army divided ;

But if the settlers won in May, 1958, they only did so because they had the army on their side. Clearly the new insurrection was designed to force the hand of the army and to bring it into action against the dismissal of its idol, Massu—-who may have deliberately offered the provocation knowing that it would be followed up by the settler movement. The army, i.e., the officer corps, still holds the keys in Algeria and will not tolerate a sell-out; it knows its power. However, the army is divided—for and against de Gaulle, for and against the settlers. Some officers_regard the General as a prisoner of the civilian old-line politicians in Paris and for whom no obscenity is spared; for others he remains a symbol of authority and the only hope for the army in Algeria. For some the settlers are greedy exploiters, and they look to a military-paternalistic regime balance between colonists and Arabs. The lack of unity in political thinking in the army is clearly a barrier to action : and inaction means obeying the orders of Paris. Without the army the settler insurrection cannot succeed. Thus, although represion seems to have been mainly left to police formations, unless the unexpected happens, we can expect that the army will keep its powder dry—seeing in this the best way to consolidate its position.

De Gaulle may move further to the right For a long time now de Gaulle has been keeping his distance from the extreme right both in France and in Algeria. He has preferred the traditionally conservative forces in big business, high finance, the Church and the army. These forces have been moving towards the principle of finding new political forms, making concessions to the moderate nationalists, while preserving the main economic stake in Algeria and the Sahara. As a matter of fact the prospects of such a policy succeeding seem dimmer than they were a few months ago. Consequently, official policy may, through force of circumstances, be brought nearer to that advocated by the men who took to the barricades last Sunday.