de Gaulle turned to the referendum procedure, this time brilliantly linking the ratification of the new constitution to a new arrangement for France’s colonial possessions. Both the metropole and the colonies were invited to vote by universal suffrage on the new constitutional framework. By putting forward the concept of a ‘French Community’, de Gaulle was able to supersede a thorny constitutional debate between two leaders of French colonial Africa: Léopold Sédar Senghor (later president of Senegal), who favored a federal solution in which Africans would become full citizens of France and the
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