Expectant Man

Walls, bridges, pavements throughout France last week were emblazoned with the challenging words out and non. With the voting on Premier Charles de Gaulle's proposed constitution just days away, the nation seemed to be drifting resignedly toward its rebirth as the Fifth Republic.

Chief opposition came not from Frenchmen but from Algerian nationalists, who seemed to have moved their rebellion to Metropolitan France for the occasion. In a week of sabotage and terrorism, F.L.N. agents shot up soldiers and policemen, blew up gas tanks and prefectures, booby-trapped an army tank bound for Algeria. Information Minister Jacques Soustelle, who is bitterly hated by the rebels as the chief political mentor of the Algerian colons, barely escaped assassination when an Algerian thrust a revolver through the rear window of his Citroen as it stopped for a red light in the heart of Paris. Trigger-happy police began shooting down dark-skinned Italians and Portuguese in the belief that they were Algerian.

De Gaulle's Cabinet met to consider the growing terrorism. But "Le grand Charlie" refused to be rattled. The problem should be left to the police, he reportedly argued. If the government reacted any more strongly, the F.L.N. would have achieved its purpose of throwing France into a seeming panic just when calmness was essential.

De Gaulle launched into a speaking tour of provincial cities ("France will once more be great," he told cheering throngs). Already he had the backing of all of the nation's major political parties except the Communists. The Socialists had been the last to fall in line when their party congress voted 2,786 to 1,176 in favor of out. The Roman Catholic Church issued a proclamation advising the faithful that they could vote for the new constitution even though it declared the Fifth Republic to be secular. Only a few voices were still raised against De Gaulle. Though his own Radical Socialists had refused to back him, Pierre Mendes-France stubbornly insisted that to vote oui was to vote for dictatorship and the end of parliamentary government. In L'Express. Writer-Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, onetime Communist sympathizer, wrote tartly: "I do not believe in God, but if I had to choose between him and De Gaulle, I would sooner vote for God: he is more modest."

For the vast majority of Frenchmen there seemed little choice. Either they would go on to De Gaulle's new constitution, or they would go back to governmental chaos. Having had plenty of the latter, an estimated 60-70% will probably cast their votes for the constitution.

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