FRANCE: The Campaigner

In the steaming Ivory Coast capital of Abidjan one morning last week, witch doctors in intricately carved masks and grass skirts threw themselves at the feet of a lofty figure clad in the suntans of a French brigadier general. On the edge of a throng that had been pouring into the city since dawn, three ebony maidens displayed bare breasts painted in the French tricolor blue, white and red. With evident delight at the warmth of his welcome, Charles de Gaulle threw his arms wide in a V-for-Victory sign and cried: "Eh bien, eh bien! The community is made."

This exultant shout marked the emotional peak of De Gaulle's 13,000-mile, ten-day campaign trip to persuade the 40 million inhabitants of France's African empire to vote for his new constitution—and thereby accept membership in a new "community of free states" led by France. When the general left Paris the week before, it had been to the accompaniment of ominous mutterings from native political bosses in the 13 territories of French Africa.

Savage Memories. At his first major stop—the large (230,500 square miles), lush island of Madagascar off Africa's East Coast—De Gaulle met with a lukewarm reception. In Tananarive, Madagascar's shady, boulevarded capital, a crowd of 30,000 gave him only sporadic applause even when he pointed dramatically to the baroque hilltop castle of the last native queen of Madagascar and declared: "It can be occupied again by the chief of the Madagascar state."

The reason for the crowd's reserve was obvious. De Gaulle was the first French Premier to dare even to appear in Madagascar in the past decade. The island's 5,000,000 inhabitants (who are divided into 20 distinct ethnic groups, but go by the collective name of "Malagasy") have not forgotten the savagery with which French troops put down the Madagascar revolt of 1947.* The political choice that De Gaulle offered Madagascar and the territories of French Equatorial Africa and French West Africa was 1) self-government within a federation (with foreign affairs, defense and economic policy reserved to France), or 2) independence without further economic help from France. In a speech to the 240 members of Madagascar's territorial assembly, De Gaulle made it plain that if the Malagasy voted no to his constitution, France would assume that they wanted to "go it alone," shorn of the $20 million that France annually pumps into the island's budget.

Symbolism & Savvy. At De Gaulle's next stop, Brazzaville in Equatorial Africa, swarms of laughing, cheering Africans all but inundated the official caravan as the general drove from the airport to the house that was built for him during the dark years of World War II when Brazzaville was the "capital" of Free France.

But even in friendly Brazzaville local politicians had "serious reservations" about the general's constitution. Within a few hours of his arrival political leaders of the four territories of Equatorial Africa presented De Gaulle with a memorandum demanding that France recognize that her African territories have a "right" to freedom whenever they ask for it.