on the railway project if Oubanguian economic output was greatly increased, so he requested that Guérillot draw up a programme for improving production and raising the standard of living. Guérillot proposed a large scheme totaling four billion Central African CFA francs in expenditures to greatly increase the cultivation of coffee trees, cotton, and ground-nuts. As a part of this, he conceived a Committee of Economic Safety, which would consist of more regional bodies of European merchants and MESAN officials who would oversee peasants' production efforts. On 30 December, Boganda praised the committee as "the union of capital and Oubanguian labour" and convinced the Territorial Assembly to allow Guérillot to proceed. French colonists found the project risky and did not invest in it, and were followed in their abstention by banks and French economic aid organizations. Goumba also thought the proposal demanded too much of peasants and began formulating his own economic platform. Meanwhile, Guérillot recruited unemployed whites in Bangui as "inspectors" with African auxiliaries to directly manage cultivation. Peasants regarded the scheme as a return to the concessionary system and began publicly protesting it. Facing skepticism in the press and a measure of isolation for earlier excluding Antoine Darlan—Oubangui-Chari's representative to the French Union—from MESAN, Boganda traveled throughout the territory to try to allay peasants' fears and exhort them to work. He stressed that increased agricultural production was the only way for Oubangui-Chari to become economically viable without French aid. Angered by public criticism, he proposed banning all political activity. The economic scheme ultimately failed to achieve its goals and damaged Boganda's reputation, as well as tarnishing the view of the Council of Government both domestically and in the French and Belgian governments. De Gaulle and the French Community Following the failure of the Algiers putsch in May 1958, de Gaulle reassumed power in France as Prime Minister and prepared to draft a new French constitution, stressing the importance of re-examining a federal relationship between France and its colonies. Boganda was not included in the new constitutional commission, to his dismay. De Gaulle hosted him in Paris in July, and upon his return to Oubangui-Chari he expressed to the Territorial Assembly that the loi-cadre was insufficient for the territory and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. He told the body he wanted assurance of "the people's right to self-determination and a voluntary freely-consented independence. The ways of introducing it are to