The Challenge of the O.A.S.

Even the most confirmed skeptic about French politics cannot doubt the imminence of a cease-fire agreement in Algeria. The important question has become whether such an agreement will solve France's problems. During the period of the Fifth Republic's formation, and during the first years of de Gaulle's power, it was assumed that it would: the end of the war would mean good riddance to a troublesome, wearying and expensive colonial adventure, and a chance for a new France to find her place in the New Europe. What else?

This may still be true; but the French are no longer so sure. Since the negotiations for the cease-fire began various extreme groups have become increasingly vocal in their doubts about the effectiveness of the liberation of Algeria. On the left, the extreme Socialists headed by Sartre have coined their theory of involution--that the violence of the Algerian war has infected and corrupted Metropolitan France. The group that has done most to eat away the confidence of France in her essential stability, however, is the Organization de l'Armee Secrete. It has been the basic purpose of the O.A.S. to alert the metropole to what it considers the real nature of the Algerian struggle, and to convince France that she is wrong in think the Algerian struggle peripheral to her real concerns. While the terrorism of the O.A.S. verges on the unbelievable (recent estimates of the toll during the first two months of this year have reached 1500 killed and 1900 wounded, in Algiers, Bone and Oran), its purpose is as much to simply attract attention to its ideas as to win a war by violence.

The ideas of the O.A.S. on Algeria are in many cases vague and confused, sometimes quasi-mystical. But it is clear that it challenges de Gaulle and the Gaullist policy on three levels.

First, Salan and his lieutenants believe that what is being tested in Algeria is not the right of peoples to self-determination, but the will of the West--or at least France--to defend itself against its mortal enemies. The O.A.S. unabashedly calls the Algerian fellaghas the enemies of the West, just as the Communists are. There is a strong racist strain in their position, of which they are not ashamed. They believe that the Communists, though espousing the nationalist cause of all the great unwashed of the colonial world, regard their "dirty little brothers" with scorn and not a little amusement. In this respect, Salan would say, the Communists are far more discerning than the West.

Admiration of the Communists' guile does not, of course, preclude hatred of the Soviets. The O.A.S. condemns de Gaulle's inability or unwillingness to perceive the immanence of Communism it sees in the Moslem uprisings. Precisely because the O.A.S. despises the Algerians, it claims that Communist influence and manipulation are the driving force of the revolution that has swept all North Africa.

The Gaullist position considers letting the Algerians go a sign of health and sanity and still expects a new day for France once she has been liberated from Algeria. The O.A.S., on the other hand, believes that the Algerian war is part of the same struggle in which France presumably hopes to participate more vigorously by freeing herself from the Algerian imbroglio. This belief is compounded partly of a desire to assert, once and for all, that the Army's service in the colonies has not been outside the main-stream of contemporary French history. Just as de Gaulle is anxious to keep his record clean for posterity by finishing what he pledged to finish, so the O.A.S. leadership is concerned lest the French army go down in history as an aggregation of "lost, violent souls." They are out to win the war to prevent this, and their cry might well be, "History will absolve us."

Second, the O.A.S. opposes de Gaulle because of profound contempt for the man himself, not just his policy. They consider him a traitor because of his policies, yes; but they reserve their strongest feelings of dislike for his autocracy and pomposity. In this, they are curiously close to the political regulars of Paris; but the differences are naturally more striking. In helping to bring him to power three-and-a-half years ago, the extremists in the Army hoped to end what it considered the futile game of French parliamentary politics. They considered France's indulgence in that game the cause of France's weakness and vacillation during the last years of the Third Republic and under the Fourth.

De Gaulle has disappointed them, however. He has indeed "gotten France moving again," politically speaking, but his concern has been too much for the perfection of his own image (just as the concern of the deputes of the Troisieme was the preservation of the parliamentary game itself, not its effective use in originating good policies). As a result, the O.A.S. feels, he has consistently failed to consult the really dynamic forces within French society, the most notable of which is, of course, the Army. Indeed, the O.A.S. was formed largely to give political expression to the ideas of the Rightists in the Army, after it became evident that their attempt to make the President "their man" had failed. If Salan really contemplates a coup in France, its purpose would be as much to secure power for this ideology as to continue simply prosecuting the Algerian War.

Third, the O.A.S. opposes liberation on behalf of the white settlers in Algeria, for fear that they will be wiped out by the armies of the F.L.N. The plain physical dread of extermination accounts for the desperation of their violence: no explanation of their ideas should obscure that fact. They would trust no guarantees that might be incorporated into a cease-fire, so the war must go on.

But the dread of extermination has as well a symbolic meaning for the O.A.S., and its fear that a great tradition will die should Algeria be liberated is crucial. No one can say to what lengths it will go to prevent that outcome. But it is certainly a good guess that the limits of its attempt will be set only by the determination of F.L.N. and loyal French troops to enforce a cease-fire. Its philosophy does not allow for compromise.