FRANCE: Franco No. 2?

Although the watered-down Left policies of moderate Premier Camille Chau-temps have been strongly endorsed by French voters at their local polls (TIME. Oct. 25), the Government set out last week to nip anti-Left revolt which may be budding in North Africa. Many of this colony's landed proprietors, while French in citizenship, are of Spanish. Italian. South American or even German birth. Almost to a man they are more conservative than the Communist. Socialist and moderate Radical Socialist parties which in coalition support the Chautemps Cabinet. Notoriously German are many tough mercenaries of the famed French Foreign Legion. The natives are Mohammedan, excellent fighters, and their chiefs are even more anti-Left than the landed proprietors. Why then should not a French commander of much the calibre of General Franco arise in North Africa and ultimately secure in France results as extensive as his in Spain?

Such a question can only be answered by a show of naked force. The French Cabinet last week answered it by ordering So first line French war planes to leave southern France, squadron after squadron, beginning October 27, for extensive maneuvers over all French possessions in Africa, including the Sahara Desert and French Somaliland as well as North Africa. After these war birds of Paris and the moderate Left have scared the Fascist daylights out of as much of French Africa as possible, the most potent bombers will fly on to impress Madagascar and finally French Indo-China.

The Chautemps Cabinet further showed it meant business last week by vesting dictatorial powers for the governing of North Africa in a close friend of the Premier, onetime Premier Albert Sarraut. ''You are instructed." M. Sarraut was told. "to present a survey of the colonial situation to the Cabinet as soon as possible and to outline the measures of control you intend to take."

The Cabinet figured it had acted none too soon when news came that Moroccan natives 1,000 strong had risen at Khemisset with knives and guns, were besieging the French garrison which had barricaded itself. Ten planes followed by troops from Rabat forced the Insurrectionists to submit and a French court-martial working at top speed sentenced 70 arrested persons to prison terms of from one to ten years, restored quiet.