A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (58 page)

Pflimlin hopes: Lagaillarde decides

With Bidault, Pinay, Mollet and Pleven all having failed even to form a new ministry, Pflimlin was hopefully awaiting his investiture by the Assembly on the night of 13 May. Already on the 8th Sérigny had remarked to Soustelle and Delbecque that, if this were to happen, “We are lost,’ and this was one factor with which all the various conspirators agreed as the temperature mounted. Disappointed by Lacoste’s tergiversation on the 10th, Sérigny (always in consultation with Soustelle) was pushed into committing a desperate editorial act. On the 11th, a Sunday, he printed in the
Écho’s
weekly sister,
Dimanche Matin
, an unequivocal call to de Gaulle to intervene, under the clarion headline PARLEZ, … PARLEZ VITE, MON GÉNÉRAL. Coming from such a long-standing Pétainist, the article had—in Sérigny’s own words—“the effect of a bomb in Algeria”. Delbecque and the Gaullists were delighted by this powerful acquisition to their cause, but the “Seven” were thrown into a turmoil. On the evening of the 12th a meeting was held in Dr Lefèvre’s villa. The Chergui, the wind from the desert that exacerbates passions and distorts reason, had been blowing for two days. Amid an atmosphere tense with febrile rumours, the
pied noir
leaders allowed themselves to be persuaded—wrongly—that Delbecque was all set to launch a coup in the name of de Gaulle the night following the morrow’s demonstrations, and before Pflimlin could be sworn in. Therefore the Gaullists had to be beaten to it.

Lagaillarde, the student prince and no doubt with the image of his martyred ancestor before his eyes, now stepped forward.

Tomorrow [he declared], I am going to seize the radio and the Gouvernement-Général, and I shall throw the files out of the windows. We shall perhaps be shot up, but Salan will be obliged to take power. As for me, I swear that I shall not leave the demonstration before getting into Lacoste’s office!

A majority of the “Seven” supported Lagaillarde. Enter Nez-de-Cuir on one of his liaison rounds. When informed of Lagaillarde’s intention, the colonel was horrified and told the “Seven” that they were “madmen”. The next morning he repeated his warning, adding, “The army will fire on you…. You will lose Algeria through your folly.”

To which Martel retorted: “You can’t fire on us. And at least
you
will have been informed.”

One of the surprising aspects of the “spontaneous” events of 13 May is that so many people were informed about what was going to happen, and nothing was done to stop it. On the 12th, the correspondent of
Le Figaro
had cabled back to Paris: “It is probable that tomorrow afternoon the Gouvernement-Général will be invaded by the mob.” Returning from Paris that same day, the former secretary-general of the Algiers police, Paul Teitgen, warned an impassively disbelieving Salan of the impending invasion, telling him that the paras would do nothing to stop it. He then sent a warning to Pflimlin, via the curiously circuitous route of the United States consul-general, the State Department and the Quai d’Orsay. But by the time it reached Paris it would be too late in any case.

13 May

The
monument aux morts
squats, like some hideous Aztec sacrificial altar, at the top of flights of steep steps. These, descending, lead through the gardens of the Plateau des Glières which bisect the centre of Algiers, and eventually to the sea. Just above it towers the Gouvernement-Général, a great white sepulchre of a modern building, adorned in its entrance by a bust of Marianne, a reminder of the authority of the republic. Surrounded by protective railings, it looks out on to the vast open space known officially as the Place Georges-Clemenceau, but more familiarly as the Forum, normally a parking area, and a favourite rendezvous of children on roller-skates. It was at 6 o’clock on Tuesday the 13th that General Salan was due to lay the army’s wreath on the
monument
in memory of the three executed soldiers. In preparation, European Algiers had imposed on itself a total shutdown. All through the morning
pied noir
farmers from the Mitidja, whipped in by Martel, poured into the city. Cars raced through the streets, sounding out on their horns the now familiar tattoo of AL-GÉR-IE FRANÇAISE. The university had been thoroughly organised by Lagaillarde, and a special “commando” detailed to stand by in readiness outside the railings of the “G—G”. Shortly after midday Lagaillarde appeared at the Otomatic (now recovered from its bombing of the previous year) and announced dramatically to the students there: “From now on I consider myself an insurgent.” By early afternoon the Rue Michelet and its tributaries were a solid mass of demonstrators and banners, an estimated 20,000 strong (Salan says 100,000). As passions rose, a first victim—ritualistically as in almost every civil upheaval since 1945—was the American Cultural Centre, sacked by an angry detachment of
pieds noirs
. At about 4 o’clock the dense crowds thronging the approaches to the
monument
parted like the waters of the Red Sea as a grim-faced Lagaillarde, clad in full para regalia, strode through. Preceding him was a personal bodyguard of four tough-looking Muslim
harkis
in battle kit and carrying sub-machine-guns.

Arriving at the
monument
, Lagaillarde leaped nimbly up on to the plinth and, flanked by other leaders of the “Seven”, vehemently harangued the crowd: “Are you going to let
Algérie française
be sold down the river? Will you allow traitors to govern us? Will you go to the end of the line to keep
Algérie française?
” The massed
pieds noirs
roared back their responses. It was abundantly clear that Lagaillarde had them completely under his spell by the time Salan and his party reached the scene. Accompanied by shouts of “
L’armée au pouvoir!
” “
Massu au pouvoir!
”, Salan laid his wreath; the crowd observed respectfully a minute of silence, then joined him in a frenetic singing of the
Marseillaise
. Now, immediately after Salan had departed, Lagaillarde took over with a shout of: “Let’s go! Everybody to the ‘G—G’ against this rotten regime!” The mob surged up to the Forum, led by Lagaillarde’s “commando” some five hundred strong. The C.R.S. fired a few gas canisters, then retreated behind the railings of the “G—G”. Conspicuous by their absence were Trinquier’s paras, who had ruled the streets of the Casbah so ruthlessly the previous year; when they did arrive they stood by apathetically, much as Teitgen had predicted the previous day, without doing anything to prevent what was impending. As stones shattered the windows of the imposing edifice, Lagaillarde’s storm troops brought up a truck and rammed the iron grille gates. Lacoste’s military adviser, Ducournau, tried to temporise with Lagaillarde, telling him “You’re mad, you’ll wreck everything!” But the mob surged on into the building, hurling down the bust of Marianne in the foyer. In a matter of moments Lagaillarde was realising his ambition of the night before. Students appeared at every window, flinging out sheaves of documents and dossiers. Standing on the roof of the central balcony that was to become the focus of world attention over the next few days, Lagaillarde was greeted in the midst of this snowstorm by wildest applause. A kind of euphoria seized the crowd, and was to hold it in its grip for many days to come.

The Gouvernement-Général seized

Meanwhile, sheltering under his desk from the flying glass and stones, Lacoste’s deputy, Pierre Chaussade, telephoned the absent governor-general in Paris to ask for instructions. Lacoste ordered that under no circumstances were the insurgents to be fired upon. But beyond Lacoste no helpful authority was forthcoming; the outgoing Gaillard felt he was no longer responsible, and Pflimlin had not yet been sworn in. In an attempt to pacify the mob, Ducournau—unable to make his voice heard—appeared on the balcony with a blackboard bearing the words: “I have just telephoned Paris to call for a government of public safety.” The crowd applauded, but continued with its sack of the building. Having received news of what was happening Salan, after a brief hesitation, set off for the “G—G” along a tunnel connecting it with his headquarters. It was less than an hour and a half since the ceremony at the
monument aux morts
. He was told that there were no casualties “except Marianne, and she doesn’t count”. Massu had arrived at about the same time, in a violent rage at the shambles (to one eye-witness the corridors of the “G—G” resembled “a packet-boat at the moment of foundering, after the mutiny of the crew”) and at the affront to good military order. Angrily he demanded, “What sort of
bordel
is this?” and, in an aggressive aside to Lagaillarde, “
Qu’est-ce-que vous foutez en uniform
?” Acclaims of “
Massu au pouvoir!
” only enraged him further, and the robust nose thrust out at a more belligerent angle than usual. Appearing on the balcony, Salan was greeted with all the long-nourished mistrust of the
pieds noirs
, dating back to the
affaire du
bazooka: “
Foutez le camp
!” “
Salan, bradeur!
” “
Indochine!
” “
Vive Massu!
” “
Vive Soustelle!
” Massu, on the other hand, the popular hero of the Battle of Algiers, received the kind of applause hitherto reserved for Lagaillarde. But when asked to say a few encouraging words to the mob about “
Algérie française
”, he growled: “
Ces cons-là me font tous chier!
” Then, after a whispered conference with Salan, he turned brusquely to the nearest ringleader and asked for names for a committee of public safety.

Massu forms a committee of public safety

The invasion by the mob, the volleys of paper streaming from the “G—G” windows, all bore an extraordinary resemblance to that other bizarre episode in French history—the seizure of the Hôtel de Ville by the Paris Communards in 1870. So did the scenes that followed. A young man in glasses who pushed himself forward, when asked for his name replied: “André Baudier, clerk in council housing….”

“But whom do you represent?”

“The mob!”

Massu wrote down Baudier at the top of his list. Then came Lagaillarde, followed by a series of
illustres inconnus
drawn from the crowd immediately at hand. The only senior army officers present were Colonels Trinquier (now commanding Bigeard’s 3rd R.P.C.) and Ducasse (Massu’s chief-of-staff), so their names too were added. Now the ubiquitous Nez-de-Cuir arrived and asked to be included on the list. Announcing the formation of the Committee of Public Safety and reading out its members from the balcony of the “G—G”, Massu received a rapturous endorsement from the crowd outside, followed by another fervent singing of the
Marseillaise
. Appeased, and in a fiesta-like mood, the crowd now settled down in the Forum to await whatever further excitements this gala night would bring, with children asleep on their knees.

There now took place a telephone call between Massu and Lacoste in Paris, nervously wanting to know what had happened in Algiers. Massu was heard to say:

Yes, it’s true, we have constituted a committee…. There is no question of a
coup d’état
…. It’s just to confirm to parliament the will of Algeria to remain French…. I could not act otherwise. Or we would have had to fire on the mob. Do you give me the order to fire? No! …

In the meantime the Committee was drafting a telegram to President Coty, which Massu then signed and despatched. Explaining that the Committee had been formed to “maintain order” and avert bloodshed, it urged “creation in Paris of a government of public safety, alone capable of preserving Algeria as an integral part of the mother country”. At about ten o’clock Delbecque arrived on the scene, having been caught out of Algiers that day and somewhat discountenanced to have been beaten to the draw by Lagaillarde, who remarked to him sardonically: “I recognise that I am a little ahead of your scenario!” Initially there were some sharp words between Delbecque and the military, with Colonel Ducournau accusing him of opening the way for a
front populaire
by his conspiracy. It was only at this point, so it seems, that an outraged Massu certainly, and Salan probably, first became aware of the various
complots
. Under the influence of Nez-de-Cuir Thomazo, however, Delbecque and several other members of the Gaullist faction were admitted to Massu’s Committee of Public Safety, together with Sérigny, Martel and Lefèvre representing the “ultras”. Almost as an afterthought, three Muslim worthies representing nine million Algerians were also included on the list, which would eventually reach the unwieldy total of seventy-four members.

Later that night, the Gaullists—adroitly turning the situation to their advantage—prevailed upon Salan to send a new and crucial message to President Coty, stating: “the responsible military authorities esteem it an imperative necessity to appeal to a national arbiter with a view to constituting a government of public safety. A call for calm by this high authority is alone capable of re-establishing the situation”. Salan, cautious as ever, had expunged from the original draft the name of de Gaulle, but the reference to “a national arbiter” and “this high authority” was explicit enough. At the same time a direct appeal was sent to de Gaulle himself. The cat was out of the bag. The army of Algeria, though grudgingly and under pressure, had committed itself.