FRANCE: The Campaigner

In the steaming Ivory Coast capital of Abidjan one morning last week, witch doctors in intricately carved masks and grass skirts threw themselves at the feet of a lofty figure clad in the suntans of a French brigadier general. On the edge of a throng that had been pouring into the city since dawn, three ebony maidens displayed bare breasts painted in the French tricolor blue, white and red. With evident delight at the warmth of his welcome, Charles de Gaulle threw his arms wide in a V-for-Victory sign and cried: “Eh bien, eh bien! The community is made.”

This exultant shout marked the emotional peak of De Gaulle’s 13,000-mile, ten-day campaign trip to persuade the 40 million inhabitants of France’s African empire to vote for his new constitution—and thereby accept membership in a new “community of free states” led by France. When the general left Paris the week before, it had been to the accompaniment of ominous mutterings from native political bosses in the 13 territories of French Africa.

Savage Memories. At his first major stop—the large (230,500 square miles), lush island of Madagascar off Africa’s East Coast—De Gaulle met with a lukewarm reception. In Tananarive, Madagascar’s shady, boulevarded capital, a crowd of 30,000 gave him only sporadic applause even when he pointed dramatically to the baroque hilltop castle of the last native queen of Madagascar and declared: “It can be occupied again by the chief of the Madagascar state.”

The reason for the crowd’s reserve was obvious. De Gaulle was the first French Premier to dare even to appear in Madagascar in the past decade. The island’s 5,000,000 inhabitants (who are divided into 20 distinct ethnic groups, but go by the collective name of “Malagasy”) have not forgotten the savagery with which French troops put down the Madagascar revolt of 1947.* The political choice that De Gaulle offered Madagascar and the territories of French Equatorial Africa and French West Africa was 1) self-government within a federation (with foreign affairs, defense and economic policy reserved to France), or 2) independence without further economic help from France. In a speech to the 240 members of Madagascar’s territorial assembly, De Gaulle made it plain that if the Malagasy voted no to his constitution, France would assume that they wanted to “go it alone,” shorn of the $20 million that France annually pumps into the island’s budget.

Symbolism & Savvy. At De Gaulle’s next stop, Brazzaville in Equatorial Africa, swarms of laughing, cheering Africans all but inundated the official caravan as the general drove from the airport to the house that was built for him during the dark years of World War II when Brazzaville was the “capital” of Free France.

But even in friendly Brazzaville local politicians had “serious reservations” about the general’s constitution. Within a few hours of his arrival political leaders of the four territories of Equatorial Africa presented De Gaulle with a memorandum demanding that France recognize that her African territories have a “right” to freedom whenever they ask for it.

De Gaulle’s response was a characteristic blend of symbolism and political savvy. It was in Brazzaville, far back in January 1944, that the general made his famed declaration, radical in French terms, that ultimately France’s African subjects must be brought “to the level where they are able to participate in the direction of their own affairs.” Now, hailing the city as a “historic place” for France, De Gaulle made a second Brazzaville declaration. Its gist: though a no vote on the constitution would exclude a territory from the French community, a yes vote would not bind it to France indefinitely. At any time, any member of the community would be entitled to withdraw into “independence”—and for the first time De Gaulle used that emotion-charged word.

No Gifts Wanted. The Brazzaville speech contributed mightily to the welcome De Gaulle received at Abidjan, his next stop, though some African political leaders in Dakar had an odd objection. “The general misunderstands us,” complained one. “He wants to give us our independence, but we want to wrest it away ourselves.”

For two days De Gaulle was subjected to the curious experience of hearing irate Africans loudly demand something he had already offered them. At Conakry, in French Guinea, firebrand Premier Sékou Touré, orating to a crowd before an obviously annoyed De Gaulle, shouted that “We prefer poverty in independence to richness in slavery.” (But Touré also promised that Guinea would vote yes to the constitution.) And at Dakar, restive capital of Senegal, De Gaulle’s motorcade into town was beset by jeering demonstrators calling for “immediate independence.” For the first time during his African tour, the stony-eyed general was faced with a sign saying “De Gaulle Go Away,” and when he tried to speak to a crowd of 15,000 in Dakar’s main square, a small but well-drilled group of leftist hecklers all but blanketed his words in catcalls. Snapped the general dryly: “I observe with some satisfaction that this subject seems to be of interest to you.”

The Unmet Plane. After the colorful crowds in Negro Africa, De Gaulle flew on to revolt-torn Algeria. This time, in contrast to De Gaulle’s two previous visits to Algiers, the right-wing European leaders made no effort to turn out a welcome for the general, and the Committee of Public Safety, which masterminded the Algiers insurrection of last May, pointedly failed to turn out to meet De Gaulle’s plane.

In this hostile environment De Gaulle made no public appearances. Instead, he spent two days consulting with local dignitaries—including a number of Moslems, whose names were kept secret to protect them from rebel reprisals. Then, bone tired, he canceled plans for a tour of the Algerian interior and set off for Paris. On the day of his departure his recorded voice boomed out over Radio Algiers, promising neither the right to independence to Algerian Arabs nor the prospect of “integration” with France to the French Algerian colons. A yes vote on his constitution, declared De Gaulle, “will mean at the very least that . . . one believes that Algeria’s development should take place within a French framework.”

Keep ’em Guessing. Yet, despite occasional catcalls, De Gaulle’s trip was a political triumph. Even in independence-minded Senegal, his new constitution seemed likely to carry by a small margin, and in most of the other territories of Negro Africa, Gaullists were convinced that they would get an overwhelming endorsement. Algeria was more a question mark, and De Gaulle left it one.

But, as the shifting tone of his pronouncements in Negro Africa demonstrated, the general never ties himself to an unequivocal statement of policy until he judges it unavoidable. Once he has got his constitution and, with it, an implied mandate to deal with France’s overseas possessions as he sees fit, De Gaulle will presumably spell out just what he plans to do about Algeria. Until then, it is his political technique to keep his countrymen—and the world—guessing.

*Though the rest of the world paid little attention (thanks to rigid French censorship). In 1950 a fact-finding committee of the French Assembly reported that the revolt had cost 55,000 lives, “mainly through disease and malnutrition . . .” Other estimates put the number of Malagasy killed as high as 80,000.