FRANCE: The Peace of the Brave

The small gilt-and-yellow ambassadors' lobby in the Hotel Matignon could not hold all the newsmen who had come. Some crowded into adjoining rooms; others stood in the courtyard outside, to which loudspeakers carried the cadenced voice. It was Charles de Gaulle's first press conference in five months, and vastly different from the last one, when he appeared surrounded by guards, and the streets of Paris were heavily policed against the threat of parachutists attempting a coup d'état.

This time De Gaulle spoke without notes; yet his thoughts were orderly, and his words precise. He spoke with quiet confidence, punctuated only by a shrug, the raising of an eyebrow, a majestic gesture of the hand. Only when talking of the bloodshed in Algeria did he show strain or emotion. "It should be known," said he, "that in four years in Algeria about 1,500 French civilians have been killed. More than 10,000 Moslems, men, women and children, have been massacred by the rebels—almost always by throat-cutting. What a hecatomb that country would know if we were stupid or cowardly enough to abandon it!"

The Open Cathedral. The phrases he used when describing the rebels were the sort that no Premier before him had dared to utter. Most of them, he said, had fought "courageously," and he offered them "the peace of the brave" (see box). But he was only willing to discuss a cease-fire with the F.L.N., not to meet their demands for independence. Only by peaceful evolution could the "courageous personality of Algeria" come to exist.

Throughout Paris, De Gaulle's direct appeal to the rebels (hinting of a quieter mediation already in progress) brought relief. It was a triumph, not of politics, but of pure personality that enabled him to make his offer; as always, he remained the man above party. In the coming elections, he said, he would "not disapprove" of any party's support, nor would he discourage opponents who "will make use of the liberty they accuse me of wanting to destroy." But his mission ruled out his taking any particular party's side. "This impartiality obliges me to insist that my name, even in the form of an adjective, not be utilized by any group or candidate." Nevertheless, politicians of almost every stripe tumbled all over themselves to win, if not his name, at least some sort of unofficial blessing. "Gaullism," said Georges Bidault wryly, "is a cathedral, open to all, with only dogs, assassins and the plague excluded."

The Open Door. Even the Communists rejoiced that "the door to negotiations is open." L'Express, liveliest of De Gaulle's journalistic critics, reversed itself spectacularly: "Everyone, or almost everyone, is now 'Gaullist,' and there is reason to be. A plebiscite this week would surely exceed the 80% [of the recent referendum]: at this moment, the man De Gaulle is, in himself, the nation . . . One is now Gaullist in the same way that one is French." Tunisia's President Bourguiba declared that "the words proclaimed by De Gaulle have never before been said. On the political level, they are something new."