851.01/3345: Telegram
The American Representative to the French Committee of National Liberation at Algiers (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 13—6:10 a.m.]
130. Reference my 87, January 10 [8], 10 p.m. The Committee on State Reform of the Consultative Assembly is engaged in drafting a compromise between the De Menthon plan and the Vincent Auriol counterproposal. While complete agreement has not yet been reached within the Committee I am advised that something along the following lines is expected: elections in either first or second degree for a new Provisional Consultative Assembly as soon as possible after liberation; the elections will be on the basis of revised 1939 electoral lists (the plan to base them on ration cards will be abandoned because of the number of fraudulent cards, foreigners who possess them, et cetera); women will be ineligible to vote in these first elections (it would take months to prepare electoral lists for them, they would outnumber the men until the prisoners return, et cetera) but they will vote in the later general elections; the Provisional Consultative Assembly as soon as constituted will receive the resignation of the present French Committee and will designate a chief of the new Provisional Government who with the members of such government will present himself before the Assembly for a vote of confidence; the Provisional Assembly will not be dissolved but will continue in existence exercising “control” over the Provisional Government until the definitive government comes into being after general elections; general elections on the basis [Page 641] of universal direct suffrage will take place as soon as the war prisoners can be brought back.
It is believed that a compromise along the foregoing lines will have practically the unanimous support of the Committee and the members of the Consultative Assembly with the exception of the Communists.
Sent to Department as 130. Repeated to London as 13.