The Popular Rebel

To the rebel leaders meeting in hurried conferences in Tunis last week, the referendum was nearly as stunning as to the frightened Europeans in Algeria. Most startling was the undeniable popularity of provisional Premier Ferhat Abbas, whose name became a rallying cry to the suddenly awakened Moslems in Algiers and Oran.

Though nominally Premier of the provisional F.L.N. government, Ferhat Abbas, 61, has been considered a convenient front man by top "Defense Committee" operatives, such as tough, secretive Abdulhafid Boussouf and Lakdar ben Tobbal.

Abbas joined the rebels only five years ago, after a lifetime as an Algerian moderate who seemed unable to reconcile his love of French culture with his Moslem inheritance. He speaks far better French than Arabic, has a French wife. The pressure of other F.L.N. leaders last year induced Abbas, discouraged about rebel prospects in the endless war, to journey to Peking and appeal for Red Chinese help. Abbas hoped that the threat of a Red alliance would force the U.S., Britain and the United Nations to bring pressure on France to negotiate.

In public, Ferhat Abbas and the F.L.N. have demanded immediate withdrawal of the French army from Algeria, prompt independence, and unquestioned control by the rebels. Privately, they spoke with more realism and greater moderation last week, frankly admitting that some sort of transition period must come before freedom. How would the F.L.N. deal with the 1,000,000 Europeans islanded among Algeria's 10 million Moslems? "We would like to integrate them into the state," insists an F.L.N. spokesman. "After all, they are more Algerian than French."

The rebels would maintain economic ties with France "because of the natural flow of goods between the two countries and because it would be absurd to de stroy existing markets." But soothing words do not obscure some ultimate goals: the nationalization of Algerian banks, the conversion of European vineyards to Moslem wheat fields, and the expropriation of large, European-owned estates, which will then be parceled out to Moslem farmers.

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