Him, Anyway!

Lukewarm Pacific Vote For de Gaulle, But . . .

Wallis And Futuna

Stuck Up For

Him, Anyway!

The people of France and most of the French territories around the world may not think as much of General de Gaulle as they used to, but in the small Pacific territory of Wallis and Futuna, they still like him almost to a man.

IN each of the two French presi dential elections in December, all but 15 of the 3,400-odd valid votes cast on Wallis and Futuna went to de Gaulle.

The Wallis and Futuna Islands are two separate groups, 120 miles apart, which lie to the west of Samoa and north-east of Fiji. They have a total population of about 11,000 people and have had the status of a French overseas territory since 1959.

In the first presidential poll on December 5 against five other candi dates, de Gaulle netted 99.75 per cent, of the valid votes on Wallis and Futuna. In the run-off against Francois Mitterand on December 19, when the number of voters was slightly different, he obtained 99.59 per cent, of the votes.

In France, where de Gaulle got only 43.8 per cent, of the votes in the first election, the cartoonists were not slow to make fun of his remark able results in Wallis and Futuna.

One cartoon showed de Gaulle and Madame de Pompadour sitting in a room containing a large-scale map of the world on which the Wallis Islands and the words “99.75 per cent, de Gaulle” were plainly marked.

De Gaulle says to Pompadour: “That is where I’m going to retire,”

Other Territories

In the three other French territories in the Pacific New Caledonia, French Polynesia and the New Hebrides-—General de Gaulle polled much better than he did in France.

But except in the New Hebrides, where Pacific Gaullism was born during World War 11, the results were nothing for the General to enthuse over.

In New Caledonia, de Gaulle gained 15,367 votes (60.28 per cent.)

of the 25,492 votes cast in the first election; and in the run-off he polled 15,896 (65.82 per cent.) to Mit terand’s 8,252.

In French Polynesia, de Gaulle’s figures were 15,574 votes (62 per cent.) against the combined total of 9,367 for his five opponents in the first election. The figures for the run-off were: De Gaulle, 59.72 per cent.; Mitterand, 40.28 per cent.

In the New Hebrides, 86.72 per cent, of the votes were cast in favour of de Gaulle in the first election, and 92.41 per cent. (1,182 to 97) in the run-off.

Some highlights of the elections in the Pacific were: • On Tiga, a tiny coral speck between Mare and Lifou Islands in the Loyalty Group of New Caledonia, the 42 registered electors voted un animously against de Gaulle in the December 19 election. Observers in Noumea are now wondering whether the Tigans will now get an aerodrome that has been promised them, and for which a survey was made some months ago! • Although the people of Tahiti voted overwhelmingly in favour of de Gaulle in the December 5 election, electors on the neighbouring island of Moorea, only 10 miles away, gave most of their votes to his chief op ponent, Mitterand. The only other French Polynesian island that voted against de Gaulle was Rurutu, in the Australs, where Mitterand got 207 votes to de Gaulle’s 173. On the other hand, opposition to de Gaulle was virtually non-existent in many atolls of the Tuamotus and in several districts in the Marquesas. • The run-off poll in New Caledonia was preceded by a frenzied, week-long a campaign in Noumea by a de Gaulle committee. Leaflets were dropped from planes and distributed in the streets, advertisements ap peared in the newspapers, and New Caledonia’s Senator Henri Lafleur published an impassioned letter urging a de Gaulle vote. • The campaign for the December 5 election in New Caledonia was marked by extreme apathy on the part of the electors. But de Gaulle’s campaign committee produced some interesting propaganda in which it claimed that de Gaulle had saved the New Caledonians from all sorts of evils. Not only had they been saved from Japanese occupation by rallying to him in World War IT, but he had saved them from the “horror” of becoming Americans after the war when some US senators suggested that the US should take over New Caledonia as a military base and as payment for some of its wartime losses.