(9 of 10)
In the year's most impressive display of political mastery, De Gaulle made each of his objectives support the others. By flying Rebel Organizer Jacques Soustelle out of Algiers and making him his Minister of Information, De Gaulle yanked the insurgents' sharpest tooth, yet at the same time gave the embattled settlers enough of a payoff to keep them submissive if not content. By tying the vote on autonomy for France's Black African territories to the vote on his proposed constitution, he obliged right-wingers to swallow his liberal colonial policy, at the same time picked up 9,000,000 African votes to swell his majority in the constitutional referendum. By showing himself willing to offer Algeria's Moslem rebels something besides naked force, and by taking the gamble of extending the constitutional referendum to Algeria, he reconciled many left-wingers to his tighter, more disciplined constitution, added another 3,500,000 Algerian votes to his majority, and threw the rebel National Liberation Front onto the psychological defensive.
All along, too, De Gaulle made highly effective use of surprise, silence, and silence's sister, the oracular utterance. "I have understood you," he told a wildly cheering crowd during his first trip to Algiers after becoming Premier. Only four months later, when he abruptly ordered all French army officers to resign from the insurrectionary Committees of Public Safety, did the right-wing Europeans of Algiers realize that what he had meant was that he understood them and disapproved. Last week, with almost equal lack of forewarning, De Gaulle suddenly began churning out a series of decrees that he had been quietly preparing ever since his return to power last June. Among them:
¶ A 10-25% hike in France's ridiculously low rent ceilings, which have long been pegged to pre-inflation levels.
¶ A general overhaul of the judicial system designed to eliminate useless officials and to raise the pay and professional standards of France's judges.
¶ A sweeping monetary reform (see above).
¶ A tough 1959 budget that will halve the deficit by hiking taxes and cutting "social expenditures" (price supports, veterans' pensions, etc.). His drastic action should bring some order to France's tangled finances, at the same time provide funds for massive public investment in both France and Algeria. He promised nothing but a time of trials, but added that "without the effort to restore order," France would be a nation "perpetually oscillating between drama and mediocrity." De Gaulle, who dislikes economics so much, had this time shown himself willing to take it seriously.
A Time for Miracles. Despite this initial record of accomplishment, De Gaulle has a long way to go. In fact, his very conditions for returning to power—that he be summoned on his own unquestioned terms—made it necessary for circumstances to be almost beyond retrieving before he would take over. The slope that lies before him is steep. Wonders Socialist Guy Mollet: "Frenchmen expect miracles of De Gaulle. But can he work miracles?"