World: Aid for Bigots

Charles de Gaulle’s inflammatory cries of “Long live free Quebec!” during his foreshortened Canadian tour in July drew unanimous boos on both sides of the Atlantic. So naturally, the General ordered a “considerable increase” in French aid to Quebec. It would not take much to make any increase considerable, since the most visible signs of French aid so far have been an exchange of some 60 schoolteachers and a technical assist in building Montreal’s rubber-tired subway. What France desires, said De Gaulle, is “to help the French of Canada to maintain and develop their personality.” That they need such help, said French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville last week, is beyond question. Until De Gaulle’s visit to Quebec, purred Couve, French Canada “was enclosed in its bigotry and provincialism.”