Word: bourguibaism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...methodical handling of difficult situations, 67-year-old Premier Charles de Gaulle has nowhere shown himself more adept than in his dealings with Tunisia's hard-pressed Premier Habib Bourguiba. De Gaulle's predecessors, by refusing to withdraw French troops from southern Tunisia, by meekly backing the French military's unauthorized bombing of the Tunisian village of Sakiet, were slowly driving away the man in Arab North Africa who had shown himself most friendly and understanding toward the West, and most resistant to Nasser. French ineptness was also pushing Bourguiba into deeper alliance with Algeria...
Into this poisoned atmosphere moved De Gaulle. Shrewdly distinguishing between the Tunisians' natural sympathy for Algerian independence and their own need for continued French economic support, De Gaulle withdrew French troops from southern Tunisia, pulled back to the French Mediterranean base at Bizerte and let Bourguiba know that he wanted his friendship...
Above all there remained Algeria. De Gaulle's high-flown rhetoric about Algeria had at one and the same time encouraged both the right-wing French "ultras" in Algeria and Arab leaders like Tunisian Pre mier Habib Bourguiba. Now it would have to be translated into plans and actions. De Gaulle's promised trip to Algeria would probably do more to reassure the 500,000 French troops there, who in De Gaulle's words had been "scandalized by the absence of true authority," than it would please the ultras, who may find his proposed solution for Algeria...
...that he draws much of his loudest support from the chauvinists who shout "Algeria is French," most of the men closest to De Gaulle are convinced that he would give independence to Algeria in one form or another. This is why Moslem leaders like Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba also call for De Gaulle's return. Paradoxically, even some of the noisiest proponents of a tough line in Algeria, such as Jacques Soustelle, believe that a France revitalized by De Gaulle could give Algeria some form of self-government inside a North African Federation related to France...
...news of Pleven's nomination, Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba promptly announced that he no longer intended to reopen Tunisia's U.N. Security Council complaint against France over French air force bombing of the village of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef (TIME, Feb. 17). Said Bourguiba: "Monsieur Bidault's setback is an encouraging sign. His failure shows that there does not exist in the French Parliament . . . any majority for an extremist policy...