Riot & Decision

When the F.L.N. called for a general strike to protest talk of partitioning Algeria, even the French expected the worst. Jacques Coup de Frejac, France's chief press officer in Algeria, bluntly acknowledged that "support for the rebellion cannot grow any more--it is total," adding that Moslems would "gladly" follow the strike order "ioo%." Last week Algeria's Moslems proved that he was right.

On the day of the strike. Algeria lay eerie and still, chilling Europeans into renewed awareness of their dependence on the Moslems who served them as cooks and maids, clerks and mechanics. The French had warned that they would fire on demonstrators, but in seaboard villages flanking Algiers, the Moslems demonstrated anyway, sometimes led by uniformed jellagha. In Constantine, thousands of Moslems flung themselves against massed French troops. By strike's end, there were 14 French casualties, 88 Moslem dead.

As if proof were needed, the strike was convincing testimony that it was time to resume negotiations with the F.L.N. In the four-week interval since the Evian talks were broken off. De Gaulle has given up talk of a French-run plebiscite, which was at best a wistful hope that pro-French Moslems might vote for some alternative to the F.L.N. He has become convinced, as Coup de Frejac had blurted, that support for the F.L.N. is total, and that the F.L.N. will rule the new Algeria. The only question is: On what terms?

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