Suicide in Algeria

To the more-than-casual observer it would appear that the French Fourth Republic is going to hell in a handcart. Plagued by inflation, colonial wars, and internal instability, France seems paralyzed by a persecution complex of major dimensions.

One of the roots of French insecurity is her weakening hold on Algeria, where terrorist activities tie down 400,000 French troops, who are theoretically committed to NATO and who cost French reserves nearly a billion dollars a year. For almost three years (since November 1, 1954) France has been fighting in Algeria for a fictional Overseas French Union and for the principle that France is still a great nation. As Eric Sevareid said last Sunday, "Loss of Algeria could spell the end of France as a top-ranking power."

Algeria is three times the size of France, is rich in the natural resources France lacks, and is the home of 1,200,000 Europeans and 8,000,000 Arabs. It is also a burying ground for some 5,000 French soldiers, roughly 36,000 Algerian terrorists, and 200,000 civilians. It is responsible, directly or indirectly for the fall of three French governments--Mendes-France in 1955, Mollet and Bourges-Manoury in 1957. Its problems have become the source of bad relations between the French and Morocco and Tunisia and between the French and the United States.

America, traditionally anti-colonial, has found itself in this sort of hot water before, particularly with England, and can probably extricate itself without permanently alienating the parties in the dispute. But France has come to see Algeria as the last stand of French power--power which has been disintegrating steadily since the war and which reached a low, but heroic ebb at Dien-Bien Phu.

To the elements which defeated Bourges-Manoury's reform bill last Monday, the idea of eventual Algerian autonomy is anathema. Even though the bill provided only for a possible federative system of internal government in which the European colonials would keep a measure of power, it was unacceptable to the deputies who see France as she was at the height of Napoleon's Empire. This romanticism combined with the unrelenting opposition of the wealthy colonials now in control of Algeria combined to defeat the one measure short of immediate independence which might have been acceptable to the Algerian National Liberation Front.

With the French refusal to take a decision on Algeria, the only end to the costly and bloody battle in that area appears to be through negotiated settlement. The Moroccans, Tunisians, and Algerian nationalists have called for a four-part conference with the French to try and settle differences without forcing Algerian autonomy on France. But in the absence of a French government, it seems unlikely that the parley could be held before the United Nations begins debate on the subject.

The UN debate could easily strain the situation even more. The strong Afro-Asian bloc will, unless France takes steps toward mediation with the nationalists, press for condemnation of French military action in Algeria. Such a step will only serve to heighten tension between the two countries and block hopes of settlement.

Only the French can rescue themselves at this point. Until the question is settled, and settled so that the French can remove their forces from Algeria, France will continue to be bled economically and censured internationally. Algeria represents the end of a long downward trail, but it need not entail complete collapse of the French Republic.