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RlCE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
déchalandonner ΓU.N.R√' wrote one of Delbecquc1S sympathizers, Ray-
mond Dronne.1'- The schism within the party deepened sharply following
de Gaulle’s historic speech of September 16, 1959, in which he offered the
Algerian population an ultimate choice among three alternatives: “Franci-
fication,” association, or secession. Jacques Soustelle, about to leave for a
tour of French possessions in the Pacific, shot off a letter to the UNR Cen-
tral Committee asking the party to declare immediately in favor of la
francisation. The Central Committee, meeting on September 18, voted
simply to give full support to de Gaullc,"11 The next day four UNR deputies
— Arrighi, Biaggi, Battesti, and Thomazo — joined a newly created “Rally
for French Algeria,” despite a prior pledge taken by all UNR deputies not
to join any other political organization during their term of office.01 The
following month, October, 1959, with an Algerian policy debate coming
up in the National Assembly, the UNR parliamentary group in that cham-
ber decided against commitment to any one of the three options. Nine UNR
deputies promptly resigned from the party in protest.1'*' When four of these
deputies returned hat in hand requesting readmission (there being little
hope for political salvation outside the Gaullist church), they were met
with a closed door and a promise of reexamination of their cases at the
end of one year.
The first UNR National Congress, meeting in Bordeaux in November,
1959, naturally became a battleground between the two major factions
within the party, led for the moment by Jacques Soustcllc (even though he
was then a member of the government) and by Albin Chalandon. Soustelle
was warmly acclaimed by the Congress. He had the enthusiastic support of
the party organizations in Algeria and in the departments of Rhone1Bouches
du Rhone, and Meurthe-et-Moselle.”" The Chalandon wing prevailed, how-
ever, with French Algeria militants largely being kept off the party Cen-
tral Committee. The final resolution, prepared in closed committee for the
Congress’ approval, simply declared “its total confidence in the person and
the actions of General de Gaulle" and in his Algerian policy, while reaffirm-
ing its desire to prevent “any form of secession” and to preserve “a tight
union between the Métropole and Algeria.”1'7
The rift within the party could not be patched over. The Week of the
Barricades uprising in Algiers in January, 1960, found two UNR deputies
in open support of the rebels.”' Then on February 5, 1960, Jacques Sous-
telle was dismissed from his position as Minister for the Sahara. When
Sousteile continued to criticize de Gaulle’s Algerian policy in public, he
was expelled from the party in April, I960. Four more deputies quit the
UNR in sympathy with Soustelle, two of them from Soustelle’s depart-
ment of the Rhone.00 The UNR federation of the Rhone cut all relations
with the UNR headquarters in Paris; the federation of the Nord declared it-