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The French have moved in 1,000 troops, including a detachment of Moroccan goumiers (who dote on killing Tunisians), some black Senegalese, and colonial infantry with tanks. There is also a new civilian controller, a hulking 200-pounder with clear blue eyes, a granite chin and a flair for calm heroics—Jean Paul Desparnets. 41. Raised in North Africa, where his father taught Arabic, Desparnets goes around unarmed in an open jeep. He is a career civil servant of France, and has served with U.N. commissions in the U.S. and Peru. Almost daily he receives notes from the fellagha. The latest read: "Take back those soldiers you're sending here. They are only girls.
We will eat them for breakfast." The colons and the troops see the fellagha signaling at night, with flashlights from the tops of hills. "The flick of a burnoose, the beating of a donkey may mean something—who knows?" Desparnets says. "All a fellagh has to do is drop his gun, and zut, he becomes a plain Arab named Mohammed. It's not hard for them." The fellagha never attack unless certain of victory. In combat with anything like equal numbers, they leave four men behind as a suicide force to protect their fleeing leader.
"There's So Little . . ." This week on the farm of Rene Muzart, the wheat was being harvested under the protection of troops with a Patton tank. When the harvest is finished, the tank and the soldiers will go elsewhere. So the Muzarts are leaving their farm—perhaps forever.
Mme. Muzart, a plain woman worn by hard work, was almost in tears. "There's so little we can take along," she said.
Her husband blamed the ignorance of the French public at home. "They have no sympathy for us," he said. "They seem to think we're millionaires who rob the Arabs who work for us." Last week Resident General Voizard flew to Paris to take a request to Premier Mendes-France. "Terrorism has installed itself," he said. "We cannot remain passive to these attacks." Presumably that meant more troops (of which France has not enough to go around) and sterner measures. If rumors going around the Tunis bazaars have it right (and they usually have), that is just what the extremists want.