The National Assembly tonight voted, by 329 to 224, to put General de Gaulle back into power as Premier of France. The Socialists’ vote was split (about 50 of them voting with 141 Communists against the General), although he had included two Socialists in his government.

The General, who is also to be Minister of Defence, held a Cabinet meeting tonight, although the formal transfer of powers is not expected to take place until tomorrow. He is expected to go to Algiers on Tuesday. Meanwhile it was announced that the censorship of French papers and radio had been abandoned.

Earlier in the day the General had offered the Assembly a programme that is scarcely an outline of a programme and a Cabinet list which is a bare sketch of a Cabinet.

The General, in a loose grey lounge suit, made a rather gauche sign of welcome to the deputies ... He had last addressed them while still in uniform at the beginning of 1946

There were few vacant places among the 600 seats of the Assembly about to immolate itself by transferring full powers to the General, including the power to prepare a reform of the Republic for ratification by referendum. The General, in a loose grey lounge suit, made a rather gauche sign of welcome to the deputies in general and looked at them in puzzlement. He had last addressed them while still in uniform at the beginning of 1946, when he had said he might well never appear on that floor again.

Here he was back again after over twelve years, and it was now the deputies that he was preparing to send away for a long holiday – only six months it is true, not 12 years, but everyone felt that the terminal date was doubtful.

The General in his gravel, incisive voice, read his declaration: Full powers for six months, powers to draft a new Constitution to be submitted to a referendum, the assurance that the new Constitution would base all sovereign power on universal suffrage, and would clearly separate the legislative and the executive powers but would make the Government responsible to Parliament.

What everyone really wanted to know was what the General was going to do about Algeria.

This is an edited extract. Read the full article.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Manchester Guardian, 2 June 1958.

The Guardian view: Six months



Editorial, 2 June 1958

If General de Gaulle can carry out in six months – or in a year – what he promises, he will rank as one of the greatest men that France has ever known. If he fails, he will plunge France into a night still darker than in 1940. He offers to find a solution in Algeria, to strengthen the system of parliamentary government, and to re-establish order. True, there are immense ambiguities. Nobody knows for certain what his solution in Algeria is to be: full integration is apparently not his intention, nor does he think of genuine independence. Of government he has said that there must be universal suffrage, a separation of legislative and executive powers, and a Government responsible to Parliament; but it remains to be heard how extensive the executive powers are to be and precisely what control Parliament will be allowed to exercise.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Guardian, 2 May 1958.

As for restoring order and re-creating national unity, that depends largely on the success of the General’s own mystique. Can he by sheer personality bring the Army, Navy, and Air Force back to obedience? Can he impose on the settlers in Algeria policies which they would accept from no one else? Can he rouse the public generally from its despairing apathy? Can he achieve harmony with the non-Communist trade unions and with the parties of the Left? His self-confidence is unbounded. But if he fails, he will almost assuredly leave a situation more terrible than any that has faced the country in this century. The insurrectionist generals and the politicians behind them will be in open competition for power, with no further thought of parliamentary government, and this time there will be no averting of civil war.

That is the measure of the responsibility which de Gaulle has taken upon himself. The choice is his own. Another way remained open at the time of the Algiers rising, for he need not have condoned it or encouraged it by his silence. Still, that now is passed. To-day he asks for unlimited power and for a suspension of parliamentary government for six months. If his promises are fulfilled, his course in the last three weeks will have been justified and he will deserve the highest praise. And, it must be said, the nominations to his Cabinet are encouraging. M. Mullet and M. Pflimlin are included; M. Bidault and the leaders in Algiers are not. The Ministry of the Interior has gone to a senior Prefect, M. Pelletier, who hitherto has shown no sign of being a man to restrict civil liberty needlessly. At present the Defence Ministry is to be kept in the care of the General himself; and M. Couve de Murville, at the Foreign Ministry, is not the kind to remain silent in the face of rash action. The breadth and balance of the Cabinet commend it and give hope that, after all, the reign of unrestricted authority may be brief. Let us hope that it proves so, even if our hope cannot as yet be high. If de Gaulle can retire in triumph within a year, we can all rejoice; if he is forced by events to cling on to authority, or if he hands over to chaotic conflict, it will be a disaster for the whole Western world.

Algeria war of independence from France begins: archive, 2 Nov 1954 Read more

On other pages, James Morris looked at Algeria: Gaullism as a policy for Algeria alone - Settlers still confident in ‘integration,’ (continuation here,) while writer and foreign affairs expert, Anthony Hartley, provided historical context to de Gaulle’s appointment.