Shrewd Agreement

In his methodical handling of difficult situations, 67-year-old Premier Charles de Gaulle has nowhere shown himself more adept than in his dealings with Tunisia's hard-pressed Premier Habib Bourguiba. De Gaulle's predecessors, by refusing to withdraw French troops from southern Tunisia, by meekly backing the French military's unauthorized bombing of the Tunisian village of Sakiet, were slowly driving away the man in Arab North Africa who had shown himself most friendly and understanding toward the West, and most resistant to Nasser. French ineptness was also pushing Bourguiba into deeper alliance with Algeria's extremist rebels.

Into this poisoned atmosphere moved De Gaulle. Shrewdly distinguishing between the Tunisians' natural sympathy for Algerian independence and their own need for continued French economic support, De Gaulle withdrew French troops from southern Tunisia, pulled back to the French Mediterranean base at Bizerte and let Bourguiba know that he wanted his friendship.

For three years the French had refused to run a pipeline from their Edjele oilfield in the Sahara (estimated reserves: 70 million metric tons) over its natural route through Tunisia to the Mediterranean, unless French troops were allowed to stay in southern Tunisia to protect it. De Gaulle abandoned the conditions. He told Tunisian Ambassador Mohammed Masmoudi: "We are not at all opposed to Tunisia having its share of the Sahara's resources." The French and Tunisians signed an agreement to build the pipeline across Tunisia at a cost of $95 million, which will give jobs to 2,000 Tunisians, turn the sleepy Tunisian port of Gabes into an active trade center and attract capital to a backward area.

From their headquarters in Nasser's Cairo, the Algerian rebels erupted in angry protest at "betrayal" by Tunisia, complained that such a commercial deal with France was a "hostile gesture to the Algerian people at war." Snapped a senior Tunisian politician last week: "If the F.L.N. thinks Tunisia will change its mind, it is mistaken. What right has the F.L.N. to set itself up as the heir to French colonialism in the Sahara?"

Bourguiba, besides wanting to be friendly with France, also wants to make Tunisia strong enough economically to withstand the assault of Nasser-style propaganda. He is reported "deeply disturbed" by the continued subservience of the Algerian F.L.N. to Cairo, while Cairo compares him to the "imperialist lackey," Nuri asSaid of Iraq.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.