416
PARTISAN
REVIEW
one of us: Shall Algeria remain French or shall she not?
If
one were to
answer that there are other, intermediate possibilities, one would not be
understood. It would be necessary to relearn what has been taught in
school. The conquest of 1830 was presented to French students in a cer–
tain fashion, one which laid more stress on Marshall Bugeaud than on
General de Saint-Arnaud, more stress on the development of this land
than on the methods that were used to master it. In complete good faith,
four·fifths of France's citizens, who have never set foot in Africa, did not
doubt in the least, two years ago, that our actions in Algeria had been
both legitimate and to the advantage of Algeria herself.
. Today everything has changed, in the sense that this certainty has
been terribly shaken. But the question which remains-shall we stay in
Algeria?-still arouses emotions which are all but fundamental. Thus
only uncompromising answers are permissible. According to the atti–
tude which one takes, not simply on, but even apropos of Algeria, one
is classed willy-nilly with one side or the other-and the chasm between
the two sides grows ever wider and deeper.
It is symptomatic that it is precisely over this problem that the
unity of the students' organizations has recently been shattered. Since the
Liberation, French students have been grouped within the UNEF
(Union Nationale des Etudiants de France),
which constituted a genu–
ine trade union numbering 100,000 young people. On questions like
the granting of scholarships, the management of various services (student
restaurants, organized vacations, etc.), the UNEF has succeeded not
only in being consulted but in participating in the operation of the
responsible organizations. It is thus officially recognized by the State.
The UNEF waged a campaign to have students made eligible for
social security, though they are not wage earners. It demanded that
they should receive a "pre-salary," and the present Minister of National
Education, Milliere, has satisfied this demand with the plan for a reform
of education which he is now drafting. The UNEF is clearly a powerful
organization. It constitutes associations of students in the various
branches of instruction, grouped within general associations for each
university city.
Last year a break within the UNEF was barely avoided over the
relationship which the UNEF was to maintain with the VGMA (Gen–
eral Union of Algerian Moslem Students). This year, over a question
of the same sort, the break could not be avoided.
What happened was this: The president and the officers of the
UNEF protested a few weeks ago against the methods being used at
