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Flags of Convenience. For more than four long, strife-torn years, Algeria had little local politics. But there have been three elections under De Gaulle, and as a result the majority of mayors across Algeria are now Moslem, Algiers itself (pop. 500,000) has a Moslem mayor, and Moslems increasingly are taking over administrative posts. The bar of Algiers' Aletti Hotel today resembles a smoking room of the National Assembly in Paris; politicians and lobbyists outnumber hotel guests 3 to 1, and talk about their problems with surprising openness. One Moslem municipal councilor, who won election on the Gaullist right-wing U.N.R. ticket, says: "Do not be fooled by our labels; they are really flags of convenience. The threat of arrest still hangs over us. But we say what we feel."
In the tough back country, French hopes of creating a new Moslem spirit rise with each convert they win away from the rebel F.L.N.; no longer is Moslem support of the French confined to the docile, despised beni-oui-ouis (yes men). One village mayor switched sides abruptly after the brutal 1957 Melouza massacre by the F.L.N. Another convert was hardy Mohammed ben Chickh, only a year ago top sergeant in a crack F.L.N. commando outfit. Last September he rode into a French army post on a mule, explained he had grown disillusioned with the war. "We've got to put an end to this," he says, "because only then can we start building a new Algeria and recover our dignity."
Letters to the Rebels. There is irony—and a tribute to De Gaulle's astuteness—in the fact that the French army, which was talking revolt against the government in Paris a year ago, has been entrusted with the political task of winning the Gaullist peace. Though France's military activity is greater than ever before, the army officers for the most part execute De Gaulle's fraternization policies faithfully. Many now direct their hatred at those who in the days of "Papa's Algeria" created the conditions that provoked the rebellion: the big absentee landlords; the inefficient officials who allowed the predatory caïds to rule as they pleased; the illiterate smalltime clerks, policemen and tradesmen who lorded it over the Moslems, despising, humiliating and at the same time fearing them.
In Sétif, the army mess recently invited more Moslems than Europeans to a tea, and warned Europeans that if they did not mix with the Moslem guests, "only one conclusion could be drawn"—that fraternization was a myth. One French captain wrote a dozen letters to local rebels, promising them amnesty if they left the F.L.N. to resume normal lives in their villages. Several replied in almost friendly fashion, one saying that he wanted to wait and see what came of De Gaulle's forthcoming meeting with the King of Morocco. That meeting, if it takes place, would imply high-level Moslem approval of recent French progress—civil as well as military—in Algeria. But another replied, symbolizing the many Algerians yet to be won over: "You are not fit to serve as the recipient for the excrement of our liberation army."