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On both sides of the broad Algerian boulevard stood columns of red-bereted French paratroopers, Tommy guns slung across their chests. Inside the square 15,000 Algerians—Moslem and European —gazed expectantly at the towering figure on the distant rostrum. They had come to hear General Charles de Gaulle abandon his Delphic evasion and spell out his plans for stanching the wounds of France and Algeria.
"Last Sunday," boomed the deep voice from the rostrum, "3,500,000 men and women of Algeria, without distinction of community and in complete equality, gave France and myself their vote of confidence . . . This fact is fundamental because it pledges Algeria and France one to the other, mutually and forever."
The Walkout. This ringing statement seemed to suggest that France would never consent to independence for Algeria, and Constantine's European settlers were cheered. But not for long. In fact, within a few minutes, the leaders of Constantine's right-wing Committee of Public Safety—seated not on the rostrum but in a stand near by—stomped out angrily. They might have helped bring De Gaulle to power, but the triumphant Premier no longer needed them.
The general still did not commit himself on Algeria's ultimate political status: "I believe it would be completely useless to petrify in advance in words something which our enterprise itself will outline," he said. But he made it abundantly clear that the day of European privilege in Algeria was ending. "In two months," he said, "Algeria will elect her representatives under the same conditions as Metropolitan France. It will be necessary that at least two-thirds of her representatives be Moslem citizens."
De Gaulle outlined, too, an ambitious five-year plan to raise Algeria's Moslems to something like economic equality with Frenchmen. But this would require peace. "Therefore, turning to those who are prolonging a fratricidal conflict, I say: Stop this absurd fighting, and you will see at once a new blossoming of hope all over the land of Algeria. You will see the prisons emptying; you will see the opening up of a future great enough to embrace everybody."
His speech ended, De Gaulle solemnly began to intone the Marseillaise. Sullenly, the majority of his audience kept silent. In lonely splendor the general carried on, his firm voice ringing out over the loudspeaker.
Searching the Wind. To Constantine's Europeans, the speech may have been a bitter disappointment. But De Gaulle was speaking to another audience too, offering them not all they wanted either, but an opening. This unseen audience sat 1,600 miles away, huddled around a conference table in a spanking new, six-story apartment building in Cairo.