Future of Algeria

Report Outline
Algerian Issue in U.N. General Assembly
Toll of Persisting Algerian Rebellion
Struggle for Way Out of Algerian Impasse

Algerian Issue in U.N. General Assembly

U.S. Support of French Position in United Nations

Agitation over the civil war which has been going on. in Algeria for three years will shift soon from Paris to New York. The General Assembly of the United Nations, convening in regular session on Sept. 17, is due to take up once more the question of French Algeria. Whether the rebellion in Algeria is a widely supported native struggle for independence, as Moslem nationalists assert, or is an insurrection against legal authority by a comparatively few “criminal separatists” and foreign agents, as the French contend, may be clarified during the course of the coming debate.

With the time for a showdown drawing near, France has been trying to persuade other countries that she is doing everything possible to solve the Algerian problem. The government of Premier Bourges-Maunoury has been readying a new basic law for Algeria, to be presented to the French National Assembly at a special session Sept. 24, which may embody far-reaching concessions to native aspirations. In the meantime, French officials have been making a round of visits to foreign capitals to rally the support of other members of the United Nations.

French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau was in Washington, Sept. 7, to discuss the matter with Secretary of State Dulles. He was understood to have contended that to grant independence to Algeria at the present time would lead to a break-up of the territory. The French-dominated areas around the cities of Algiers and Oran, he reportedly predicted, would declare their own independence and the remainder of the country would be economically handicapped without a good port. In such circumstances, Pineau felt, Moslem Algeria would soon fall under Communist sway.