Second Term
FROM DARSIE GILLIE
nREstpErrr DE GAULLE is now facing his sixth r winter in office. No ruler of France has had such a run of years since Napoleon III—Badin- guet to his enemies. The comparison with Badinguet is one that the President particularly dislikes and which is used by those who particu- larly dislike him. When a prominent Gaullist recently remarked that there was no reason why the President should not remain in office until 1970 (when he will be touching the age of eighty) the comment came with a rap from the Canard Enchaine—Tadinguet also left in the year '70.' Will the second half of de Gaulle's reign be marked by the same painful decline into disaster?
No one can rule a people like the French with their fondness for sharp comment, their pleasure in watching political manoeuvres and their rooted belief that there is something democratic in a change of political personnel, without stimulating opposition and few people can stay in power even that long without losing some of their political judgment.
The President has evidently lost neither skill nor courage. It was too little remarked, for instance, that during his last royal progress through south-eastern France he was in fact visiting an area that had voted predominantly for the opposition. It was fine judgment to choose it for his visit at a time when his popularity was certainly not at a peak. He showed himself prepared to go where he was necessarily weakest and in fact provided a reasonable explanation why the reception was less cordial.
It is impossible to imagine any candidate who would command the support of a big enough sector of the circuit to be a dangerous competitor even if you discuss him as `Mr. X', the formula devised by one of the most intelligent opposition weeklies. The mistake that the President will probably not make would be to appoint an heir- apparent in the shape of a vice-president to be candidate along with himself at the next election. The constitution does not provide for such an office. It would certainly be resented if he tried to use his own prestige to fasten a future President of the Republic. He could only lose votes himself. There will no doubt be a moment of danger when his hand is suddenly withdrawn whether through death, illness or inclination and the country will have to wait for a successor to be chosen by a nation-wide presidential election but there are some dangers in human affairs that are hard to avoid.
Two aspects of the President's policy are con- stantly mentioned in conversation with all sorts and conditions of Frenchmen as causes of oppo- sition. These are the enormous efforts required to provide France with her own nuclear deterrent
PARIS and the huge sums that the French taxpayer is expected to provide for the support of the republics that once formed her empire.
The only sure way to rally French opinion to the support of the President on the first of these issues is for foreigners, especially the British, to carp at it. The government's own arguments that a large conventional army is more expensive than a deterrent and that its policy is permitting a reduction of serving soldiers by four hundred thousand, and finally that nuclear equipment means the possession of nuclear know-how, have all been curiously ineffective in stemming criticism as long as the debate is an internal one. But the subsidies to Algeria are almost equally disliked. It does look odd to the man in the street that he should be paying the equivalent of £70 million to President Ben Bella's Algeria during 1964, and this is only the biggest single item in the whole of France's foreign aid programme.
It must be remembered that President Ben Bella, has already torn up most of the Evian agreement of March last year ending the Algerian war and giving Algeria independence. M. Pompidou was at his best in the Assembly when he defended the Algerian subsidies on the broadest possible line, namely that the developed countries must come to the assistance of the underdeveloped on a huge scale if there was to be any hope of social and international peace in the future. But he also mentioned a motive which cannot apply, for instance, in the case of Britain. The United States suffices to see to it that our language should remain an international one. In the case of France, however, the survival of French as a language used the world over depends on a stupendous effort in the maintenance of schools, the provision of teachers and the support of French commercial and cultural contacts of all kinds with French-speaking Africa, and other countries where French culture has prevailed. It may well be that what is now a ground of criticism of the President. namely his subsidies to former French Africa. will be looked back upon hi the future as one of his claims to glory for both national and international reasons. The question is being raised in some circles whether this policy of such generous assistance is being executed with sufficient firmness as to the way the money is being spent. American generosity in Europe failed to earn the fall mead of gratitude that it deserved because of the close control over expenditure. This certainly caused bitterness in France. Is it that memory which prevents the President from trying to exercise a similar control in Africa today?
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