Clemency & Combat

For a few heady moments last week the Deputies of Gaullist France almost succeeded in recreating the wrangling course of the Fourth Republic. "The representatives of the working class have been arbitrarily reduced," bawled Communist Waldeck Rochet. "We are only ten Deputies for 4,000,000 voters." From somewhere in the rear of the great half-shell that houses the National Assembly, a voice shouted back: "That's ten too many." A right-wing Deputy's ironic reference to "how times have changed" brought Premier Michel Debre himself to his feet. "One thing has not changed," roared the testy Debre. "At the tribune stands a man who recalls the worst aspects of the Fourth Republic --and that's you."

But in the first parliamentary debate of the Fifth Republic, it became evident that under the new constitution France's National Assembly can be as irresponsible as of old--but not so powerful. In the plodding. 70-minute speech in which he outlined his government's plans, 47-year-old Premier Debre showed no ambition to be anything more than De Gaulle's handyman. "The presidency of General de Gaulle," intoned Debre, "is today the first of our national necessities." And when he demanded a vote of confidence--under the new constitution he did not have to do so--he got a handsome majority (453 to 56, with 29 abstentions).

The General Orders. No man to let his power rust, De Gaulle last week did what former governments would not have dared. In a sweeping clemency decree De Gaulle ordered:

P: The transfer of Algerian Rebel Leader Mohammed ben Bella and four of his colleagues from Paris' Sante prison to more comfortable quarters in a military fortress. Henceforth, the five rebel leaders (whom the French kidnaped off a Moroccan plane in 1956) will have the honorable status of military prisoners. P:The release of 7,000 Algerians from political detention camps. P: The commutation to life imprisonment of all death sentences (198) hanging over members of the rebel F.L.N.

"This puts a premium on murder," objected an indignant Algerian Moslem member of the National Assembly whose son and son-in-law were both killed by F.L.N. terrorists last month. Rumors spread through Paris and Algiers that private talks are being carried on by the French with F.L.N. representatives. Premier Debre insisted in the Assembly that De Gaulle's October invitation to Algerian leaders to come to Paris under safe-conduct to negotiate "a peace of the brave" was still open. "No other offer," said Debre, "has been or could ever be envisaged." Yet such denials did not exclude the possibility that contacts with the rebels (if not actual negotiations) have been resumed.

The Guns Speak. There was also contact of another sort. At De Gaulle's orders the French army has begun to penetrate in force the arid "forbidden zones" of Algeria where the F.L.N. bases its units. Fortnight ago 12,000 French troops, supported by artillery and rocket-carrying fighter planes, surrounded and wiped out two companies of rebel troops. In one week the French claimed to have killed a total of 672 rebels at a cost of 46 French dead.

The F.L.N. response to the new French tactics was to split its units into elusive, lightly armed commands of 30 men--a device that helps rebel forces survive mass attacks but seriously reduces their striking power. Fact is that neither the rebels nor Charles de Gaulle are under any illusion that the war can be won militarily, and both sides yearn for peace and a political settlement.

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