France: Era Ending

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The old soldier saved France again.

Under the first impact of the mutiny of the generals in Algiers, even Charles de Gaulle's iron composure seemed momentarily to waver. But in four perilous days, the 70-year-old De Gaulle re-established his imposing authority. France was left badly shaken, but with a sense that long-lived rancors had been purged. Stubborn and proud, De Gaulle once again proved himself the greatest Frenchman of modern times.

The issue was one that France had been half avoiding for years, and it involved nothing less than the end of empire. The soldiers who forced the battle had bled and lost in Indo-China. had evacuated Tunisia and Morocco, blaming it all on the "politicians." They had toppled the Fourth Republic in May 1958 to install De Gaulle—who was now telling them only three years later that they had to give up Algeria, the last and bloodiest possession of all. But the soldiers, in their bitter years abroad, had lost all touch with the new sentiments of Metropolitan France—the contentment with prosperity, the weariness with trying to impose authority on those who did not want it. It was the Métropole. rallied by Charles de Gaulle, that last week defeated an audacious army revolt in Algeria and, with it, outmoded dreams of empire.

What's Up? Premier Michel Debré was the first in Paris to learn that the rebellion was on. Calling the delegate general to Algeria, Jean Morin, to check on rumors of impending trouble, Debre snapped, "What's up?" Over his bedroom telephone. Morin answered: "I'm not free. These gentlemen are in my room. I can't say any more except that we're well." Debre at once aroused De Gaulle, who had spent the evening at the thea ter with Senegal's Poet-President Leopold Senghor.

The Algerian conspirators well knew that they could not succeed unless they won mainland France, and Debré took to television in a near state of panic. "Aircraft are ready to drop or land paratroops at various airdromes to prepare a seizure of power,'' he warned. "As soon as the sirens sound, go there by foot or by car to convince the misled soldiers of their profound error." Later, in an evening that Parisians already refer to as La Nuit Folle (Mad Night), Minister of Culture Andre (Man's Fate) Malraux delivered a stirring address to an unlikely crowd of Resistance veterans, movie starlets, beatniks and the sports-car set up from St.-Tropez. They all struggled into ill-fitting boots and khaki uniforms as members of an impromptu militia.

Power Degraded. De Gaulle took stock of the situation and found it alarming. Apart from the danger of actual invasion, he faced the likely possibility of defections among the two French NATO divisions in West Germany and the garrisons in France—for the past year he had used the Continental army as a dumping ground for 3,000 officers transferred out of Algeria for their ultra sympathies. De Gaulle showed his lack of faith in the France-based troops by confining them all to barracks. For his real defense De Gaulle called on the police and police reserves, ringing Paris with 10,000 gendarmes "in tanks and half-tracks.