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Implicit in De Gaulle's tribute to the British version of parliamentarianism was his longstanding contempt for the system as it is practiced in France. But ironically, in the midst of his triumphal visit to Britain, his scorn had brought his popularity at home to its lowest ebb since he took power in 1958.

Most conspicuous among the discontented were France's farmers, who find themselves in a painful economic squeeze caused by De Gaulle's abolition of the parity index linking farm and industrial prices. A month ago, a majority of France's Deputies demanded a special National Assembly session on the farm problem. De Gaulle flatly--and probably unconstitutionally--refused (TIME, March 28). Denied an outlet for their grievances through normal political channels, 400,000 peasants last week turned out across the length and breadth of France in protest demonstrations. In the Breton town of Quimper, farmers in clogs, smocks and broad-brimmed velvet hats blockaded the railway station for three hours, were hurled back from the city hall only by police baton charges. At Sens, 60 miles south of Paris, another 3,000 peasants fought a pitched battle with steel-helmeted riot cops, shouting, "We will not be serfs of the Fifth Republic."

Even within the Gaullist U.N.R.--the political mainstay of Premier Michel Debre's Cabinet--there is dissension. Many U.N.R. wheelhorses openly sympathize with tough Jacques Soustelle--the man whom De Gaulle fired as Minister of the Sahara for showing undue sympathy toward the European insurgents of Algiers last January. Soustelle recently organized an "Information Center on the Problems of Algeria and the Sahara," makes no bones of his intention of offering "intellectual support" to Algeria's De Gaulle-hating settlers and their friends in the French army.

Asked last week whether he thought De Gaulle fully aware of the depth of France's increasing domestic discord, ambitious Jacques Soustelle enigmatically replied: "He is not, shall we say, as conscious of these problems as I am."

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