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Despite the fact that he draws much of his loudest support from the chauvinists who shout "Algeria is French," most of the men closest to De Gaulle are convinced that he would give independence to Algeria in one form or another. This is why Moslem leaders like Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba also call for De Gaulle's return. Paradoxically, even some of the noisiest proponents of a tough line in Algeria, such as Jacques Soustelle, believe that a France revitalized by De Gaulle could give Algeria some form of self-government inside a North African Federation related to France. "The strong." argues one ardent Gaullist, "can afford to be generous."
Though right-wingers make the most clamor for De Gaulle, it is significant that his appeal has always cut across party lines (except among the Communists). When France's allies consider what direction France might now take, they would prefer most the continued existence of the present regime, if roused by the common peril it resolved its differences. Otherwise London and Washington would prefer a De Gaulle who took power constitutionally* to 1) a popular front in which the Communists took part or 2) a military rule responding to mob appeal.
The Tactic of Silence. As the supreme crisis of the Fourth Republic edged into its second week, almost everybody involved in the maneuvering seemed to be playing a dangerous forcing role with a skillful caution that left room for retreat. Premier Pflimlin. gaining time with each day in office, was unflinching but not unyielding; he might have denounced the Algiers military junta for sedition, but he chose instead to remind it of its duty. The junta itself preserved a careful ambiguity about the source of its authority. Unpredictable Zealot Jacques Soustelle. greeted by fervent admirers in Algiers, nonetheless cried ou; "Long live the Republic!" and denied that he was preparing a coup d'etat.
Of them all. none was more practiced than Charles de Gaulle in la tactique du silence. "Why speak," he had often confided, "if only to pronounce words without a tomorrow?"
For the moment, with emergency powers, Premier Pflimlin appeared to have the majority of Deputies behind him, and there seemed little chance of the Assembly's calling De Gaulle on his own terms. But how stood the rest of France? The armed forces still stationed in metropolitan France were a question mark. Late in the week two air force generals serving on France's joint chiefs of staff were placed under house arrest, and next day France's No. i soldier. General Paul Ely, chief of the joint chiefs, resigned in protest. The nation's 280.000 hardbitten police, who constitute a virtual army in themselves, still seemed loyal to the Fourth Republic. Paris, ringed by its famed "Red belt" of industrial suburbs, was as apt to be dominated by leftist mobs, if it came to that, as by the rightist mobs that rioted in Algiers.