NEW PLAN FOR ALGERIA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29004, 18 September 1959, Page 11

NEW PLAN FOR ALGERIA

(Rec. 11 p.m.) PARIS, September 17. President de Gaulle’s plan to give Algeria the right of self-determination within four years of pacification has received a generally favourable welcome in France.

But in Cairo, responsible Algerian quart* ers were quoted as rejecting a cease fire unless negotiations are opened between the so-called Free Algerian Government and France.

In Algiers, the plan was received calmly but with reservations in some quarters. Some extremist bodies were preparing to reject the whole plan.

President de Gaulle made a nation-wide television address last night to announce his eagerly-awaited policy on Algeria, which has been torn by an insurgent rebellion for the last five years.

He said that not later than four years after "pacification,” Algerians would be free to choose between secession, complete identification with France, and selfgovernment in association with France.

He defined “pacification” as being achieved when the annual death roll in ambush and attack falls to 200.

General de Gaulle said that if the Algerians chose autonomy. France would handle the economy education, defence and foreign rejptions. if they chose secession, France would leave Algeria. “For my part I am convinced that such a solution would be unlikely and disastrous,” he said.

Complete integration with Metropolitan France would mean that the Algerian people would be on an equal basis with all Frenchmen. He said that all Government jobs would be open to them with

equal salaries, and they would have full social security benefits, and full educational opportunities. "All Roads Open” “If those who direct the insurrection demand* for the Algerians the right to dispose of themselves, well, all the roads to do so are open,’ he said. “If the insurgents fear that in ceasing to fight they will deliver themselves to justice, it only depends upon them to settle with the authorities the conditions of their free return, as I proposed in offering a peace of the brave” (at his press conference last October). He said: “There is no chance that France will agree to the arbitrary action of a group of agitators —ambitious men resolved to establish their totalitarian dictatorship. The fate of the Algerians belongs to the Algerians themselves. not to be imposed upon them by the knife and the machine-gun, but in accordance with their will, legitimately pressed by universal suffrage.” Given the present conditions in Algeria, secession would bring on “a disastrous misery, terrible political chaos, general throatcutting, and soon the war-like dictatorship of the Communists,’ General de Gaulle said. The demon of secession should be exorcised and it should be done by the Algerians”