Visnews filmed the arrival of France's new Prime Minister, Michele Debre and Cabinet colleagues at the Elysee Palace, Jan 13, for their first full meeting under President Charles de Gaulle.

The outcome: a presidential pardon in varying degrees for Algerian rebels. It means many death sentences commuted and the release of some 7000 detainees.

Filmed on the steps of the Elysee- the official residence of the Presidents of France where the Council of Ministers (Cabinet) traditionally sit - is :
Jacques Soustelle, Minister Delegate controlling the atomic energy programme, Sahara development, overseas possessions and the newly found space research commission;
Andre Malraux, Minister of State;
Antoine Pinay, Finance and Economic AFFairs' Minister;
Debre, the 47 year-old Prime Minister, expected to visit Prime Minister Macmillan in London early this year
Robert Buron, Public Works and Transport Minister;
M. Bokanowski, State Secretary at the Interior Ministry;
Edmond Michelet, Minister of Justice;
Louis Jacquinot and Pierre Guillaumat;
Minister of State and Defence Minister;
Maurice Couve de Murville, Foreign Minister;
Paul Bacon and Jean Berthoin, Labour Minister and Interior Minister.

The measures of clemency, forecast late last week, are the first gesture of the new President - de Gaulle is the 18th - to help bring peace to Algeria. Reports estimate some 200 condemned rebels will be saved from the guillotine.

Two rebels, specifically mentioned, are Ben Bella, 40, and Messali Hadj. Bella and four other rebel leaders - all members of the rebel organisation's so-called Provisional Government in exile in Cairo - are to be freed from the Santo Prison, Paris. There is no change in the criminal proceedings pending against them - in fact, there has been no sign of any immediate wish to put them on trial.

Bella and his sides were captured in a sensational kidnapping organised by the Mollet Government, 1956, when they were seized in an aircraft flying from Rabat to Tunis.

Bella has now been ordered to "confinement in a fortified place" - probably Belle Ile, off the holiday coast of Brittany. This is the fortress where Messali Hadj - who is leader of the Algerian Nationalist group, MNA, once rivalling the FLN - has been held for the last three years. Hadj will now be allowed to live where he chooses in France. A visa for Algeria is out of the question: he has more enemies in Algeria than in France.