With Bombs & Bullets

Goaded by the frustration of a war it can neither win nor end, France lost its head, and the result was a murderous display of the kind of ruthless brutality that the West commonly ascribes these days only to Communism.

It was market day, and the streets of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef, a Tunisian village only 700 yards from the Algerian border, were thronged. Shortly before noon, a flight of 25 French military aircraft--mostly U.S.-made fighters and light bombers--swept over the border. In precise military formation, they bombed the town, strafed the streets with machine-gun fire. When the planes turned back to their Algerian bases an hour later, the scabrous little village was a shambles. Nearly 80 dead and 79 wounded were recovered from the rubble. A school was bombed out and 34 children buried in the ruins. Two Red Cross trucks, distributing clothing to Algerian refugees, had been blown to bits. Cried a survivor: "They did it with American planes, bombs and bullets!"

Why had France unleashed this savage attack on Tunisian civilians? By French report, several reconnaissance aircraft had been fired upon recently by machine guns emplaced in the village outskirts, and so, in the chilly words of France's Defense Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas: "Our aviators did no more than exercise the right of legitimate defense against antiaircraft elements operating from Tunisia with an impunity that was obviously unacceptable." A government spokesman added that he hoped "the Tunisian government would not seek to exaggerate the significance of the incident." Newsmen, stumbling through the rubble and counting the bodies laid out in long rows by the village cemetery, felt that the incident needed no exaggeration. Reported the New York Times's Thomas F. Brady, of 58 bodies laid out on the ground under the light of automobile headlights: "From their dress it was clear they were all poor folk . . . Some were horribly burned or mangled. Most were barefoot; none were in uniform."

Back to Normalcy. Back of France's sudden fit of savagery was a longer-growing irritation with Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba. Increasingly, France blames Bourguiba and his open support of Algeria's F.L.N. for its inability to crush the rebellion. The French have tried to seal off the 500-mile Tunisian border with heavy patrols and an electric fence. But Algerian recruits pour across it for intensive schooling in tactics at Tunisian-based training centers; trained men and equipment pour back to go into action in eastern Algeria.

Only two months after Foreign Minister Christian Pineau solemnly declared to the U.N. that "practically all over Algeria, life has returned to normalcy," the rebellion had flared into new life. In the first days of February, F.L.N. ambushes and raids resulted in some 100 French casualties, and the heavily guarded rail line between the new Sahara oilfields and the port of Philippeville was blown up twice within ten days. A French divisional commander glumly admits that the F.L.N. is "incomparably better armed" than a year ago. The French have begun speaking of Bourguiba in terms they once used for Egypt's meddlesome Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Bourguiba makes no secret of his sympathy for the Algerian rebels. One of the West's sturdiest and earliest friends in Arab North Africa, he argues that if Tunisia does not help the F.L.N., Algeria's rebels will turn to Cairo and the Soviet Union. He is tied to France by education and training, and his wife is French. When Bourguiba won his country's independence two years ago, he pledged himself and his new country to maintain "special links" with France, still looks to it for economic help. He has curbed the power of his anti-French Interior Minister, Taieb Mehri, and fired his Minister of Youth and Sports, Azouz Rebai, for using his position to inflame Tunisian youth. He has repeatedly ignored Communist overtures, and only accepted a $250,000 Soviet shipment of medical supplies, food and clothing for Algerian refugees in Tunisia (estimated at from 20,000 to 40,000) on the condition that no Russian be allowed a hand in their distribution.

Trickling Aid. But he believes that France's refusal to come to terms with the Algerians threatens not only his own but the West's whole position in North Africa. He is especially bitter at the recent $655 million loan to France, which he and other North African leaders interpret as financial support for France's Algerian war. He contrasts this aid with the trickle of money received by his own country.

"Tunisia is unique in the Arab world as having allied herself unequivocally with the Western bloc," says Bourguiba. "Tunisia is a bastion in North Africa, and U.S. support is vital if I am to maintain my influence with the Algerians. The only thing that has kept the Algerians from moving over to the side of Nasser is the help they are getting from Tunisia." Last week Bourguiba called it "disquieting" that the F.L.N. leaders, who have recently held their councils of war in Tunis, have shifted their next meeting to Cairo.

Confined to Barracks. The bombing of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef seemed this week to have shattered Bourguiba's last hope of friendship with France. Within hours, he had recalled his ambassador from Paris, ordered the French to evacuate the Bizerte naval base, directed that the 18,000 French troops still garrisoned in Tunisia be confined to their barracks, and requested their removal from the country as soon as possible. Said Bourguiba grimly: "We are not at war with France, but we can consider that today's aggression marks the opening of hostilities."

Among the retreating colonial powers, the French have clung longest to the savage techniques of imperialism's unhappy past. In 1945, when Algerians killed some 100 French in a local uprising in the Constantine area, the French retaliated by bombing and strafing towns, killed some 20,000 Algerians before calling a halt; in 1946 French warships and artillery bombarded Haiphong, killing some 10,000 Vietnamese; in 1947 the French wiped out entire villages in putting down a revolt in Madagascar, killing some 40,000 men, women and children.

It looked as if France's latest blunder might cost the West one of its best friends in North Africa, where it has none too many.

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