Days Are Numbered

There was a slow-gathering presentiment of crisis in France. President de Gaulle himself seemed to share it, for a new note crept into his discourses. He talked of "the abyss at our feet" if France were disunited. To a rain-soaked crowd at Chambery in the foothills of the Alps, he appealed in almost anguished tones for national unity. "I have no other reason for being, you well know, than this unity. I am in a way the symbol of it, the guarantee; events have willed it so. It is the service that I can perform in the days which remain to me and which for me are numbered. I ask of the French that they support me and help me, not to tear themselves apart in passions and excesses of opposition."

Uneasy Consciences. Approaching 70, De Gaulle is showing the strain of gathering burdens--in red-rimmed eyes sunk deep into their sockets, in the sagging greyness of flesh on his jowls, in the thickness of his voice. He is under the sharpest attack since he returned to power in 1958. In trying to settle the Algeria problem, he has not finally quelled the discontent in the restive army, and now pressures are rising in France--from political parties, trade unions and intellectuals--to start political and military talks with the Algerians at once, without waiting, as De Gaulle once insisted, for the rebels first "to check their knives in the cloakroom."

Expressing the uneasiness of French youth about bearing arms in the sixth year of the Algerian war, the teachers' union issued a manifesto that "the problem of youth has now become the problem of the nation." Young Frenchmen have gone to jail for aiding the rebel FLN. Lyons' Cardinal Gerlier asked prayers to end "the devastating war in Algeria and the terrible problems it poses to the consciences of many, particularly among the young."

In Paris a coolly hostile National Assembly met to hear De Gaulle's ministers explain his project to create an independent $1.2 billion French nuclear force. To complaints that the plan was too dear, too meager and, above all, too disruptive of vital European defense unity, Premier Michel Debre replied plaintively: "France is not going toward isolationism, toward neutralism." But since De Gaulle's constitution empowers him to dissolve the Assembly and call new elections if his wish is not granted, the bill was likely to pass.

Uncertain Confidence. In the late Fourth Republic, such parliamentary resistance to De Gaulle's demand for an independent deterrent force would have brought down the government. In the Fifth Republic, the danger lies outside Parliament--the loss of confidence in De Gaulle himself. So far, De Gaulle's answer to opposition has been to make frequent tours of the country, presenting himself in a virtual continuous popular referendum that he has no trouble winning. But even De Gaulle has sensed discontent in the air, and politicians who accompanied him on Tour No. 12 to eastern France came away persuaded that the President will soon propose "something" to end the Algerian deadlock.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.