The True Profile

For Frenchmen the words "an Algerian election" have long served as satirical shorthand to describe a rigged vote, and Charles de Gaulle's first four elections in Algeria did little to change the time-honored meaning of the phrase. But for his fifth Algerian election, completed last week, De Gaulle's orders were strict: the French army was to put no pressure on Moslem voters; civilians were to run the polls and, where possible, the transportation to them. Last week De Gaulle had one result he was after: the first honest political profile of revolt-torn Algeria.

Purpose of the balloting was to set up "general councils," which will advise prefects and supervise local administration in Algeria's 13 departments. Candidates pledged to De Gaulle's policy of self-determination for Algeria won 298 of the 452 seats. Candidates running on purely local issues won 67 and diehard anti-Gaullist French settlers another 87. One ultra winner: pretty Babette Lagaillarde, 26, wife of imprisoned ex-Paratrooper Pierre Lagaillarde, who led the extremist settlers of Algiers in their insurrection against De Gaulle last January.

Biggest disappointment of the election from the Gaullist point of view was the fact that only 55% of the electorate voted. One faction among the French settlers, smarting from what a De Gaulle adviser calls a post-insurrection "realization that they are no longer masters of their fate," boycotted the polls, cutting the turnout in the cities. The rebel F.L.N. also called for abstention; 70% of the Moslem population stayed away in Algiers' casbah, and 86% in Setif, home town of F.L.N. "Premier" Ferhat Abbas.

The vote suggested that most Algerians want peace and some tie to France. But it did not bring these ends visibly nearer. In pre-election raids, F.L.N. terrorists killed 17, including three candidates, in Algeria, plus one policeman and four civilians in Paris. And among Frenchmen as well as Algerians impatience for peace was mounting. In Toulouse, the Catholic, pro-Communist and independent unions have joined forces to demand immediate negotiations with the F.L.N. France's big Socialist Party is agitating for a ceasefire, and last week the potent National Students Union announced that it planned to resume its links with the outlawed, pro-F.L.N. Union of Algerian Moslem Students.

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