After years of tension and months of negotiations with Tunisia’s determined Nationalists, the French government of Premier Edgar Faure last week made good the promise given to one of its restless protectorates a year ago by his predecessor, Pierre Mendès-France. At the end of three days’ debating—joined in for the first time since he left office by Assemblyman Mendès-France himself—France’s National Assembly overwhelmingly approved the government proposal to grant Tunisia internal self-government in gradual stages over the next 20 years. Even the Communists did an unexpected turnabout, tossing their 98 Assembly votes in on the government side and leaving only the extreme right in opposition. The vote: 540 for Tunisian home rule, 43 against.
“The time of colonialism is finished,” exulted Faure.
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