Snag in Algeria

Charles de Gaulle's top aides were on the phone to Algiers a dozen times a day. At each call their gloom deepened; De Gaulle's grand design for Algeria had struck a deep snag.

Buoyed by the astonishing Moslem turnout (nearly 3,000,000) and the whopping 96% yes vote for his new constitution in September's referendum, De Gaulle had offered the Moslems 46 of the 67 seats from Algeria in the new National Assembly in Paris. He hoped that among the Moslems chosen in this month's Assembly elections he would find interlocuteurs--moderate Moslems who were neither servile beni-oui-ouis (yes men to the French) nor extremist backers of the rebel F.L.N.

But last week De Gaulle and his aides discovered that it was one thing to procure, with the French army's help, a big turnout at the polls, and quite another to find Moslems willing to run for office. In the first five days that the lists were open, not a single Moslem volunteered to run. At week's end only a scattered few had come forward, and most were familiar beni-oui-ouis.

The reluctance of the Moslems was partly based on fear of the F.L.N., which could not make good on its death threats against the 3,000,000 Moslems who voted in the referendum, but could easily pick off the few that ran for office. Besides, many moderate Moslems seemed to feel that, if De Gaulle's government was eventually going to deal with the F.L.N., they should not appear as candidates in an election that the F.L.N. had condemned as "null and void."

In alarm over this setback to the government's hopes, General Raoul Salan, French army commander in Algeria, in a special broadcast, promised the Moslems complete freedom in campaigning and full protection in voting. De Gaulle would not listen to the appeals of the hesitant that the elections be postponed. "This is an incident," said he calmly. "There will be others."

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