An anecdotal account of the French secret service by two French journalists. The English translation carries the story to the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbor.
What is the reaction of the French people to the politique de grandeur-the policy which, in the name of France, General de Gaulle is projecting on a world scale? Before this question can be answered we must first ask: How is French policy shaped and decided? Next, how is it made known to parliament and public opinion? Third, do the broad masses of the people have access to adequate and objective information on which to base their judgment of this policy? Only then can we turn to the question: What is their judgment?
When French voters rejected the proposed EU constitution last year, they revealed a profound lack of confidence not just in Europe, but in France itself. Long the driver of European integration, Paris these days can barely steer its own ship of state. Jacques Chirac is a big part of the problem. But France's troubles run deeper.
This is the A.B.C. of the art of politics. De Gaulle's mastery of mystère, which is above all the art of ambiguity and of Pythian formulas, permitted him, when faced with the gravest problem he ever had to meet-the Algerian War-to man?uvre among the reefs for four years, to envisage in turn every possible or impossible solution and to see them all miscarry. First there was the offer made to the Algerians to become "whole-share French citizens;" then the mission given the army to "integrate the souls" of the Algerian people; then the grand vision of an African California grouping Algeria and French Black Africa in a zone of prosperity around the oil of the Sahara; then the still ambiguous concept of an "Algerian Algeria," independent but associated-all leading finally to the collapse of French colonization in North Africa and the accords of Evian, now hardly more than a scrap of paper. At the end of this tortuous course, the wisdom of the statesman has been "to accept things as they are," to respect the Evian Agreements on his side and to accept unflinchingly the violation of them by the other side, in order to show that he is satisfied-and to keep the future open.
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