Walkout

The Foreign Minister of France was outraged. "The decision you are about to make," said Antoine Pinay to the U.N.'s General Assembly, "is more serious for the United Nations than for France, for the whole future of our organization is at stake."

But threats were not enough. In a froth of anticolonialism whipped up by the 14-nation Arab-Asian bloc, and with the united vote of the Soviet bloc, the General Assembly overruled its powerful Steering Committee (for the first time on a major issue) and voted to debate France's conduct in the troubled North African region of Algeria. The rebellion carried by only one vote--28 to 27*--but that one vote was enough to plunge the U.N. and France into dramatic antagonism.

Tomorrow's Consequence. Trembling with anger, dapper Antoine Pinay climbed back to the Assembly rostrum. "Twice I have warned the Assembly of the consequences of a violation of the Charter. An assault of passion and demagogy has led the Assembly to disregard the recommendations of its General Committee . . . My government refuses to accept any intervention of the U.N. . . . My government will consider as null and void any recommendation which the Assembly might make in this connection."

Pinay paused. "I must add . . . that I do not know what will be the consequence tomorrow of this vote." Pinay walked stiffly back to France's place on the Assembly floor, gathered up his papers and his aides, and led them silently out of the United Nations.

From Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Pinay telephoned Paris to report his action to Premier Edgar Faure. "You did the right thing by walking out," said Faure. He gave Pinay fresh orders, and next day they were carried out: Pinay and his staff flew home. There, to show France's anger at the Soviet vote in the Assembly, Faure and Pinay immediately agreed to postpone their scheduled visit to Russia. The Cabinet decided to keep its delegation out of the Assembly session, but not quit the U.N. entirely.

Off in a Huff. Walkouts and boycotts are by now a familiar, if unpleasant, occurrence to the U.N. But this was the first time a government had gone so far as to pull out its entire delegation and to suggest out loud that it would consider withdrawing from the world organization. U.N. diplomats were stunned by the radical method France had chosen to resist any international meddling in the affairs of the North Africa territory that for more than a century has been administered as a part of metropolitan France.

With the members so evenly divided, it was obvious that the General Assembly would be unable to summon up a two-thirds majority to make any recommendations on Algeria. Indeed, had the French chosen to remain and maneuver instead of flying off in a huff that was more suggestive of guilty conscience than outraged innocence, they might well have persuaded a few delegates to change their minds and thereby table debate of the Algerian case indefinitely.

On the other hand, the Arab-Asian nations, blandly encouraged by the Soviet bloc, had picked a most sensitive and questionable case in which to pit their whim against the loosely worded U.N. Charter prohibition against meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. Unlike Morocco, a protectorate, Algeria is, in French eyes, at least as much a part of France as Alaska is part of the U.S. This much of the French case the U.S. supported when it voted with France against any U.N. debate.

Algeria is the heart and core of French North Africa, the home of 1,000,000 Frenchmen, a region enriched by billions in French investments and subsidies. Its land and its 8,000,000 Moslem natives, the French insist, have been integrated into the French nation on a basis of equality. But the statistics (e.g., average income of an Algerian Moslem family is about one-eighth that of a mainland French family), as well as the vast majority of Algerian natives, disagree. In recent months the disagreement has taken the form of violent nationalist resistance and bloody French reprisals.

While the French colons block reforms (promised as long ago as the Statute of Algeria of 1947), French troops--now swollen to 130,000--patrol cities and hills, meting out punishment and death to suspected nationalists. Last week even the 60 Moslems of the Algerian Assembly, long known as les valets because of their subservience to French desires, took the unheardof step of refusing a summons to meeting; instead, they overwhelmingly rejected the policy of integration with France.

Legally, the French had a strong case against U.N. meddling in the affairs of "metropolitan France." Morally, they had an obligation to keep their unkept promises to the Algerians.

* The vote split the twelve NATO allies in the U.N., ten voting against debate, Greece siding with the Arab-Asian and Soviet blocs, Iceland abstaining. It also divided the Latin Americans--eleven against, six for, two abstaining.

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