respect for the Catholic Church to his advantage, manipulating religious symbols for political purposes. Boganda's attachment to the clergy weakened when he met and fell in love with a young Frenchwoman, Michelle Jourdain, who was employed as a parliamentary secretary. By 1949 they were cohabitating and Boganda wrote a letter to his Catholic superiors, pointing out that clerical celibacy was a rule created by the Catholic Church and had no biblical basis. On 25 November he was expelled from the priesthood. Despite this, Boganda remained a devout Catholic and sympathetic to missionary interests. The couple was married on 13 June 1950, and would later have two daughters and a son. On 10 January 1951, SOCOULOLE agents in the village of Bokanga became involved in a heated dispute with local Portuguese merchants, with the former objecting to the latter's practice of forming a coalition amongst themselves. The co-operative agents insisted that the village market be closed until Boganda could arrive to represent their case. By the time he arrived, SOCOULOLE members had blocked the roads leading out of the locale with trees to prevent the merchants' trucks from leaving. Fearing a loss of law and order, the head of the district of Mbaïki arrested Boganda (along with his accompanying wife) and held him in detention for two days. He was charged with "endangering the peace" and on 29 March the local court sentenced him to two months in prison (his wife was condemned to two weeks incarceration for aiding him). Since he was arrested in flagrante delicto, his parliamentary immunity offered him no protection. Boganda terminated SOCOULOLE later that year due to financial difficulties. Boganda's arrest occurred five months before the next round of French National Assembly elections, and he framed it as a campaign issue. He ultimately won re-election, defeating challengers from the RPF and RDA, and the colonial administration acceded to his return to office. Co-operation with the French In 1952, the French government appointed more reform-oriented officials in French Equatorial Africa, allowing for a relaxation in tensions between Boganda and the local administration. In March 1953 RPF leader Charles de Gaulle visited Bangui. Boganda refused to see him due to his leadership of the party, but de Gaulle refrained from taking a public stance on the politics in Oubangui-Chari, a move which was interpreted as an expression of disapproval of the local RPF's tactics. On 30 April 1954,