France Against Herself

[This represents the opinion of a minority of the editorial board. The majority opinion appears above.]

In the last year, France's inability to solve the Algerian situation has emerged as brutal reality through a haze of good intentions. No government could make the concessions the FLN demands and remain in power; no premier temperamentally prepared to make these concessions could have ascended to power.

The Algerian rebels will not trust France through three years of waiting for peace. They will not trust France to administer fair elections: in seven years of bitter fighting, violence has become the lynchpin of rebel strength, which they will not renounce until freedom is ensured.

Intentions count for nothing: France must find a solution, but it cannot find one; de Gaulle must resolve the situation if he is not to fall, but any means he can employ today would destroy his government. France has acted creditably and in reasonably good faith with its other possessions, but they represented soluble problems, and Algeria does not.

Only the United Nations offers the slimmest hope. Apparently torn between NATO allies and the neutrals, the U.S. is really forced to choose among continued tacit support of a patently hopeless program, open support of such a program, or commitment to the UN. The chance is open to establish the international organization not only as a force of order, as in the Congo, but as an effective mediator.

Perhaps this path would betray France, for perhaps France pride would be so hurt that the compromise would be unacceptable. But it seems possible that the UN could be accepted, under pressure, as a gesture to convince others of the good faith which de Gaulle has already personally guaranteed. It need never be suggested that France would not bargain in good faith: rather, acceptance of the UN could become a supreme French gesture of willingness to do anything to convince the Algerians of honest intentions.

Today NATO is divided against itself over Algeria; the United Nations is split; the United States has chosen to support through default a position which has a faint scent of loyalty to our allies and a stench of futility. Even if the regard of anticolonial nations is of no consequence, even if the support of the United Nations were not a compelling demand, even if support of United Nations intervention were really opposed by all our allies, the UN still offers hope in Algeria. France offers none.