Crisis in French North Africa
The situation in French North Africa is steadily deteriorating, largely unnoticed by observers abroad. Last week in Tunisia the M'zali government resigned and its fall marks the end of the détente between the French authorities and the Bey of Tunis which was the most solid result achieved by M. Voizard, the French Resident-General. In Tunisia there have been attacks on the farms of French settlers by bands of uniformed rebels (reports put their numbers at up to two thousand) as well as the usual assassinations and attempts at intimidation of French sympathisers. In Morocco French settlers have had their crops burned and there have been a series of outrages culminating in the shooting last Sunday of General d'Hauteville, commander of the Marrakesh military district. In some ways the situation in Morocco is even graver than that in Tunisia, since French rule now depends on the support of El Glaoui (the Pasha of Marrakesh) and his Berber mountaineers, and this is as though the British Raj in India should have depended on the support of the Pathan tribesmen of the N.W. frontier to overawe the plains. The consequences of such a policy can only be catastrophic: no wonder M. Mendes-France has found it necessary to create a special ministry for Tunisia and Morocco. M. Mitterand (who resigned from the Laniel government in protest against the deposition of the Sultan of Morocco) has been made Minister of the Interior (with respon- sibility for Algeria), and M. Fouchet takes charge of the new ministry for the protectorates. M. Fouchet is a Gaullist, but his appointment is a sign that North Africa is at last being taken seriously and not left to the mercy of the conflicting policies of ineffective ministers, authoritarian generals and greedy settlers. The only question is whether it is not too late.
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