The Last Four

Bowing to the nationalist drive in black Africa, France's De Gaulle recently agreed to what 20 months ago he refused to contemplate: full independence for African nations within the French Community. Last week, after the French Parliament and the Community Senate had voted constitutional changes to make this possible, four more former French African colonies--Ivory Coast, Niger, Dahomey and Upper Volta--said they would seek full independence.

Driven to this step by the fact that France has already accepted bids for independence for the other seven members of the Community, the Ivory Coast's Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who would have preferred to keep closer ties with France, bitterly commented: "For a marriage two people are needed, and France never made it as far as the church."

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