France: Surpassing Himself

In 15 press conferences studded like black pearls through his nine-year rule of France, President Charles de Gaulle has often enough demonstrated his unique mastery of the power of negative thinking. Last week, in Press Conference No. 16, he surpassed himself. "In 100 minutes," as Paris Le Populaire tidily summed it up, "General de Gaulle in the name of France called for secession of French-speaking Quebec in Canada, tossed England out of Europe, threatened the Common Market with destruction, called the U.S. the principal enemy and suavely knifed Israel." But the broadside effort took its toll. The general's skeins of rationality grew considerably tangled in spots, and he tried to make up for the lack with an extra dosage of sarcasm and heavy humor.

Gathering questions at the outset from the 1,100 newsmen assembled in the Elysee Palace's elegant Salle des Fetes, he broke in when someone asked if it were true that he had said he wanted to see Britain "stripped naked" be fore allowing it to enter the Common Market (see box, opposite page). "I am going to answer you at once," he said slyly. "Nudity for a beautiful creature is natural enough, and for those around her is rather satisfying. But whatever attraction I feel for England, I never said that about her." Having got his guffaws and proved himself one of the boys, he then went on to collect the rest of the questions and to deliver his memorized peroration, all the important questions having been planted with newsmen in advance.

Guilty on Three Counts. After lauding the French economy's advances during his reign, De Gaulle denied that France was in any way responsible for the current "squalls" in the world's monetary system. Those problems would be solved very simply if the world went back to the gold standard with all its "universality, immutability and impartiality." In particular, he said, the U.S. balance of payments deficits for the past eight years precisely equaled the total of American investments in Europe. De Gaulle's obvious solution for the U.S. payments problem: get out of Europe.

He found Israel guilty on three progressively perturbing counts. It went to war against his admonition, which was bad enough. It won, which was even worse. But most heinous of all, the victory benefited the image of the U.S. as Israel's main supporter. So, in a long historical ramble on Israel's origins that shocked the French by its antiSemitism, De Gaulle described the lews as "an elite people, sure of themselves and dominating." The state of Israel after 1956, he said, was a "warrior, and determined to enlarge itself."

Unacceptable & Intolerable. Not content with the uproar he caused in July by visiting French Canada and calling for a free Quebec, the general went even further in a boldly irredentist bid. Canada, he lectured Ottawa, putting on his glasses for the first time in a press conference, must rewrite its constitution, turning Quebec loose to elevate itself "to the rank of a sovereign state." Then Quebec and France must organize for the "solidarity of the French Community on both sides of the Atlantic." How else, he asked, could the French of Canada "cope with the encroachment of the U.S.?"