NORTH AFRICA
THE almost simultaneous announcement of the with- drawal of the Sultan of Morocco to Tangier and of the French UN delegation to Paris following the placing of Algeria on the agenda of the UN General Assembly focuses attention once again on the weakness and ineptitude of French policy in the Maghreb. Probably more harm than good will come of a discussion of Algeria in the General Assembly, but to• pretend that the problem can be dissociated from that of the rest of French North Africa is the merest play on legal jargon. Anyone who has studied either elections to the Algerian assembly or the history of Algerian immigration into Metro- politan France can have little confidence in the advantages accruing to the Moslem population from being inhabitants of French departments rather than of French protectorates. For M. Pinay and his delegation to take the next plane to Paris is a fine enough gesture, but one which solves none of Algeria's real problems. It may prevent M. Faure's Government from falling for a week or two, but it will do nothing else.
That Government has, indeed, almost reached the point of dead momentum that has usually heralded the end of adminis- trations of the Fourth Republic, and nowhere has its failure in initiative been more grossly illustrated than in its Moroccan policy. The Aix conference between the French Government and representatives of all shades of Moroccan opinion had agreed that Sultan Moulay Ben Arafa should retire, delegat- ing his powers to a Council of the Throne, whose carefully balanced composition was then agreed, and this appeared to be a solution which would, ror the moment, evade the dynastic issue and permit the formation of a representative Moroccan government. But what happens? The French Resident-General, General Boyer de Latour, is got at by La 'Presence Frangaise, the settlers' pressure group; after an ultimatum from Paris to the Resident-General, the Sultan leaves, delegating his powers to his cousin, Moulay Abdullah; no word is spoken about a Council of the Throne; the agreement between the French and the Moroccan nationalists is treated as if it never existed; M. Faure's policy is once again frustrated by the men on the spot. It is difficult to think of a comparable defiance of a highly centralised government by men who are supposed to be its servants or of one more disastrous in its consequences.
For, though the rising in the Riff and the outrages in the Algerian department of Oran may be merely coincidental in their timing (it seems fairly certain that the Spanish Govern- ment connived at the attacks on French posts along the border of Spanish Morocco), one thing is certain : the lack of good faith on the part of the French (for it cannot be called anything else) has struck a shrewd blow at those sections of Istiqlal who believed that a negotiated agreement on the future of Morocco was possible. From now on a swelling tide of outrage and violence is to be expected, and for this the intransigence of French politicians, officials and settlers will be to blame.
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