M. Gaillard and Chauvinism
ONLY last week the French Government was playing with the idea of breaking off diplo- matic relations with Tunisia. The advocates of this step in the press correctly stated that the Algerian rebels enjoyed extensive facilities in Tunisia and that they came and went across the long frontier with apparently no hindrance from the Tunisian authorities. Parts of Tunisia seemed indeed to be dominated by the Algerians. It is also true, however, that the President of Tunisia, Mr. Bourguiba, is considered a francophil traitor in pan-Arab circles, that he is the only Arab leader to have criticised at least the tactics of the Algerian rebels, that the educated Tunisians are more familiar with French than Arab culture, that many French officials are still serving the Tuni- sian Government, that there are a hundred thousand French men and women still settled in Tunisia, that Tunisia is part of the franc zone, that there are French garrisons and a French naval base in Tunisia. President Bourguiba has repeatedly asserted that one of the reasons why he wants Algeria to be self-governing is that this Will open the way to a closely co-ordinated group of France and the three North African territories.
It will surely strike future historians as odd that SO many French public men and political com- mentators failed to see that though President Bourguiba is in many respects an opponent he is in others an ally. It is true that he is an irritating one. A French journalist has observed that he gets on Frenchmen's nerves because he is himself so French that he forgets he is not a Frenchman and is constantly making remarks that Frenchmen would only tolerate from a fellow-countryman. He is too talkative. His gift of speech has been an essential element in his career. He makes a Weekly broadcast. His position differs from that of the King of Morocco in that he disposes of no hereditary prestige and of only a pitiably small armed force.
Why did the French Foreign Ministry have so much work 'to do to explain to M. Gaillard and his Ministers that, to break off diplomatic rela- tions with President Bourguiba would be a very Silly thing to do, not only inconvenient but Possibly dangerous? France has no interest in see- ing him replaced by some rival who would be a mere hanger-on of the Egyptian dictator. It is indeed very curious that few Frenchmen show much interest in the future of France in the two former protectorates where she still has such a Part to play.
This is in part no doubt because the attitude of mind needed to play that part is incompatible With the effort France is still making to force Algeria into a French mould. If, too, you accept the orthodox and probably fallacious optimism about the situation in Algeria, it is 'logical to suppose that France can wait to work out her new relationship with Tunisia and Morocco until a pacified Algeria gives her a much more com- manding position.
There is, however, another and more disquiet- ing reason for the wave of nationalist emotion that has marked the winter. It is the essential difficulty of governing France herself. From M. Gaillard's point of view the gravest of France's problems are her financial and economic ones, how to master inflation and remedy the unfavour- able balance of payments. His own personal com- petence is financial and his background, as a well-to-do French bourgeois, tends to isolate the problem of proper financial 'management from others. Social and political problems are treated by him as consequences rather than causes of financial and economic ones. He is asking for big sacrifices to set France's financial house in order - and needs other than bookkeeping arguments.
More than any of his predecessors M. Gaillard is insisting on the necessity of a constitutional reform that would give him and his successors a better chance of passing over a long period the kind of measures needed to restore stability of prices. The reforms that he is proposing include the renunciation of the Assembly's right to pro- prise additional expenditure, an almost un- restricted- right for the Government to dissolve Parliament (approaching the English model), and provisions that hinder totally incompatible parties from combining to throw out a government they cannot replace. French political observers are in- creasingly pessimistic about his chances of per- suading the present Assembly to accept such a radical reduction of the deputies' privileges. It was only by a narrow margin and with a reduced majority that he succeeded during the first week of the new parliamentaiy session in preventing his own coalition from demanding that the Budget which they had passed in the last week of the old year should be immediately amended so as to increase the deficit.
In the meanwhile his Government, if it is to survive, must wrestle with the problem of infla- tion. He must have some emotional appeal to help him. He has found it in the current of nationalism that has marked French opinion increasingly for at least two years and on which M. Mollet also relied, though rather more subtly. NI. Gaillard exploited this emotionalism without hesitation over the issue of rifles for Tunisia. He most skil- fully used the flattering aspects of President Eisenhower's presence in France to get the Budget passed. Last week he was using the new crisis with Tunisia in the same way, though less success- fully. There have been some indications that M. Gaillard is learning the danger of exploiting the nation's emotions on foreign policy to keep his majority together—even in the interest of sound finance. Oddly enough the section of his coalition which has perceived this most clearly is the M RP, the party that provides him with his Finance Minister, M. Pflimlin. It is the M RP that is rebel- ling against the Government's boosting propa- ganda about Algeria.
But in the meanwhile the Republic's govern- ment has to be carried on. M. Gaillard can ask his critics to look at the present Parliament's record and propose another method. The problem does not at present suggest an encouraging answer.
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