The Old Order Changes

The worldwide postwar revolt against colonialism last week licked at the foundations of the French empire in North Africa. In Morocco, where the French conquest was not completed until the Riffs were put down in 1926. arson, shootings and bombing killed scores and wounded hundreds. In Tunisia, where French paratroopers are engaged against nationalist guerrillas, French Premier Mendes-France was trying to head off revolt with a belated promise of home rule. Evenin Algeria, a part of metropolitan France and the home of 1,000,000 Frenchmen, the Arab population (8,000,000) is rumbling with discontent.

Each of the three French territories (see map) has its home-grown strife and problems. But in the 20th century, history, geography and politics have converged to give their stirrings a singleness of purpose. Of the world's 53 million Arabs, virtually all have received their independence in the past generation except the 20 million in French (and Spanish) North Africa. Of the world's 315 million Moslems, few outside the Iron Curtain remain "dependent peoples"; those few are mostly in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Fanned by France's retreat in Indo-China, by Britain's from Iran and

Suez, their demands have caught fire at a time when Western opinion has decisively rejected old-fashioned imperialism, and when France herself lacks the power, and possibly the will, to extinguish revolt by force of arms.

The French found North Africa largely desert, and in places they have made it bloom. The million and a half Frenchmen who now live there regard it as their only home. Equally important, France's African empire, all of which might fall if strategic North Africa is lost, is the last remaining assurance that France is a great power. "Without it," Frenchmen argue with incontestable pessimism, "France will have no place in the 21st century. We shall be 40 million Frenchmen against nearly twice as many Germans. We shall become another Portugal."

Some kind of French retreat seems inevitable in North Africa, as it was in Indo-China. The question is whether it will be made in good order. "We must leave," said one French settler. "It could still be done today, gradually and without catastrophe. True, some French colonists may lose their estates. But if things go on as they are, they may lose their heads as well." Probably not many colons in Tunisia would agree with him; they hope to stay. Whether they will be able to depends on French wisdom and skill--on the wisdom to recognize a changing order, on the skill to adapt with it. So far, the signs are not promising.

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