‘New Look’ In French Policy

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30945, 29 December 1965, Page 11

‘New Look’ In French Policy

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright)

PARIS, Dec. 28.

Gaullist officials are talking a lot about a “new look” in French policy at the beginning of President Charles de Gaulle’s second term, United Press International reported.

But any “new look” seemed likely to be more optical than real, U.P.I. said. The national Parliamentary elections being in the offing less than 18 months from now, President de Gaulle will have to give at least an impression |of paying more attention to the things that appeal directly and personally to the average French voter—housing, wages, living costs, highways, social security, pensions, hospitals and schools.

Failure to keep a close eye on these could result in a massacre at the polls of the ruling Gaullist Union for the New Republic (U.N.R.), leaving him in the unenviable position of a President faced by a hostile Parliament. But in the foreign policy field the supposed “new look” is likely to be practically invisible.

In fact, aside from unregenerate Gaullist propagandists, French officials say there will be really no change at all. The President’s attention is expected to be focused on three main foreign policy fields— French “independence,” Europe and the Vietnam war.

Without Interference

By “independence” Gaullist officials mean elbow room to operate without interference from other countries—specifically the United States. President de Gaulle is expected in the first three months of 1966 to spell out in details his demands for top-to-bottom revision of the

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation command structure, so as to end by 1969 what he regards as the objectionable peace-time “subordination” of French forces in N.A.T.O. to an American supreme commander

President de Gaulle hopes early in 1966 to see an end of the Common Market crisis which was triggered off by his own boycott of the European Economic Community since June 30.

He has agreed to France attending a meeting of Common Market foreign ministers in Luxembourg on January 17 and 18. The President also emphasises that he still favours European political unity—though on his own terms, U.P.I. said. Those would rule out anything like a “United States of Europe” in the foreseeable future— a project he regards as utopian and impractical. Instead, he favours a loose federation of fully sovereign States, whose heads of Gov-

ernment and State would confer from time to time, but without any supranational government or parliament. The Vietnam conflict, which he labelled “that absurd war” in a campaign speech, is one of his heaviest preoccupations. He is said to feel there is constant danger it could grow into a nuclear third world war.

Officials say President de Gaulle believes that, as the only Western leader with relations with Washington, Peking and Hanoi, he can make an important contribution some day to a negotiated settlement, which he always has considered the only possible end to the conflict But French officials say he concedes there is no possibility of getting peace talks under way at the moment. All he can do, they say, is to watch from the wings and grab a chance to intervene in a peace-making role if ever it offers itself. It is a role he would relish dearly.