A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (96 page)

In one aspect, however, all were quite united; they were the hardest of hard-liners when it came to contemplating any dilution of future Algerian sovereignty, or the continuance of French influence in Algeria in any form whatsoever. Aware of their intransigence, de Gaulle was determined that this albatross which Guy Mollet’s France had hung around its neck should continue to be excluded from the peace talks at all costs. But, though absent, Ben Bella and his colleagues would throughout constitute the mummy at the feast. They would exert a stiffening influence whenever there might be suggestions of flexibility, moderation or compromise in the air. Within the G.P.R.A. the prisoners of Turquant were also finding an increasingly sympathetic, and powerful, ally in the form of Colonel Boumedienne who, already in the pre-negotiation period, had sharply criticised Krim for risking peace talks at all. If these were to fall short of total satisfaction for the F.L.N., argued Boumedienne, grave damage might be inflicted to the morale of the army — which he himself had so successfully reconstituted.

The F.L.N. hardens its line

The first practical disappointment for the French negotiators came with the resolute refusal of the F.L.N. to meet de Gaulle’s “unilateral truce” with anything resembling a reciprocal gesture. On the contrary. The period of May—June showed a fifty per cent increase in the rate of “incidents”; the wounded numbering 121, the dead eighty-five — which included sixty-two “third force” Muslims and twenty French soldiers. From Tunis Yazid declared: “An effective interruption of the fighting can only be the result of a bilateral accord bearing on the overall political problem.” As always, the F.L.N. was remaining rigidly faithful to the line laid down at Soummam in 1956, regardless of whatever concessions de Gaulle might feel impelled to offer; there could be no cease-fire of any sort before a political solution. Worse (from the French point of view), orders captured in the Wilayas revealed the A.L.N. of the “interior” deliberately exploiting the French “unilateral truce” to replenish arms supplies and regain ascendancy over the “floating voter”. Unashamedly and effectively, F.L.N. propaganda took the line: “Victory is at hand! The enemy is on the point of calling for mercy!” Desertions multiplied from the demoralised
harkis
. At Evian, says Bernard Tricot, Krim actually “reproached us for this unilateral decision, as if we had broken some unspoken law of the war”. Angered at being rebuffed once again, de Gaulle used the F.L.N.’s response to the truce as an excuse for slamming the door even more firmly on any suggestion of Ben Bella and Co. playing a part at Evian. Meanwhile, just to make the role of the negotiators even more difficult, the O.A.S. had celebrated the eve of Evian with a
festival de plastique
, exploding a score of bombs in Algiers, and keeping up their offensive over the ensuing days.

As the actual negotiations at Evian got under way, a fundamental difference of approach was at once discernible between the opposing teams, with Joxe endeavouring to get down to specific details — such as the length of the “transitory phase” from French administration to Algerian sovereignty, and the “guarantees” to be provided for the Europeans — and Krim seeking refuge behind declarations of general principles. On the vital issue of “guarantees” for the
pieds noirs
, Tricot found it “intolerable” that Krim would not, or could not, “speak with precision of the future”. Immediately, said Tricot, there gaped “an abyss between the global guarantees of which we were thinking and the various protestations of goodwill which our representatives had heard”.

Basically the guarantees requested by the French were:

Double nationality, so that the
pieds noirs
could become Algerian citizens while still retaining their French nationality.

Assurance against discrimination, particularly regarding private property.

The normal minority rights of freedom of religion and education, and of a fair share in public life.

After Krim had rejected these demands as infringements of the sovereignty of the “Algerian people”, Joxe attempted to pin him down into giving a definition of what he meant by the “Algerian people”. It was, said Krim in an impassioned speech which evoked all the long pent-up resentments and chagrins of his race:

constituted by the
indigènes
who had resisted over a long time the French conquest. They are united by language, religion, customs, a common history which contains much fighting and suffering. The war which has lasted for seven years has demonstrated the force of their national conscience, but this people has had to submit, since 1830, to the fact of colonialism. A European population has been created, heterogeneous in its origins, but soldered together by its integration within French nationality…. It has benefited from exorbitant privileges…. Independence is going to pose the problem of these Europeans. We wish to settle this in all equity, and we do not refuse to these people the right to unite themselves to the Algerian people and even to be merged into them.

Not unreasonably, Joxe and his colleagues found little for comfort here. Nor was Krim any more encouraging on the subject of European property. “Here is a people”, he declared, “of whom several millions live in misery, and who after independence must not feel themselves still colonised.” Land and property which had been “legitimately” acquired, said Krim, would be respected; but — coupled to the repeated F.L.N. declarations over the preceding seven years that all colonial-held assets would be expropriated and redistributed — the French negotiators found all this “rather disquieting”. The burden of Krim’s assurances to the
pieds noirs
was that, just as for the agreement on articles of Franco—Algerian “association and co-operation”, the details must be left for the French and the future Algerian government to work out. But in what possible way could an as yet unborn Algerian government be bound to honour whatever vaguely worded undertakings might be agreed at Evian? Here it was abundantly evident to the French team that there existed a fundamental dichotomy between the “old guard” Algerian revolutionaries, such as Krim and Abbas, prepared to accept the continued existence of a
pied noir
“presence”, and the hard-liners already bent upon a future Algeria from which they would eventually be excluded: Boumedienne and Ben Bella. Though, for the time being, it might seem that Krim represented the majority view, who could predict what hand would hold the reins of power in three, five or ten years’ time? Moreover, with de Gaulle formally and rigidly committed to non-recognition of the G.P.R.A., Joxe the professional diplomatist was, as Tricot notes, “embarrassed” throughout the talks by not knowing precisely with whom, or what, he was negotiating. What indeed was “this revolutionary organism which had created itself into a government without ever having exercised any territorial authority, and pretended to represent a state which had never existed”?

Here, willy-nilly, the French found their heads led into a noose which, eventually, was to prove fatal for the
pieds noirs
. All right, said the Algerians, if you cannot recognise the G.P.R.A. as a legitimate government, then it cannot accept any responsibility for the future. With the G.P.R.A. black-balled, pacts could only be concluded with the F.L.N. — which, as a mere political party, would have no powers to make commitments binding upon any future Algerian government.

The Sahara, and breakdown

With the “Statute for the Europeans” threatening to reach an impasse, Joxe switched to the question of the Sahara. But here the lines of disagreement were even more sharply etched. In simplest terms, the French view was that the Algerians had no more right to the vast desert under-belly than the Indians had to Texas. Pedantically, Joxe explained how the frontiers of the Sahara were purely artificial, created arbitrarily by French cartographers. Historically, geographically and racially it had never had any connection with Algeria, and what was understood by Algeria was that narrow strip bounded by the Atlas mountains and the Mediterranean; traditionally the Algerians, claimed Joxe, had always been drawn northwards rather than southwards. Meanwhile, France had consistently accorded the Sahara special status. It required only the minimum of cynicism to comment that, ten years previously, the fate of all those millions of hectares of barren and would not have occupied the conference table for five minutes, but now what was at stake was the untold wealth of the oil and gas beneath the surface. Vast sums of French capital had already been poured into its exploitation; the future prosperity of the Gaullist economy was predicated upon it. Altruistically, the French delegates at Evian expounded the intention of developing the Sahara resources for the benefit of
all
former French colonies adjacent. De Gaulle was adamant. “The petroleum, that’s France and uniquely France,” he told Joxe, adding: “The Algerian Sahara is a juridical and nationalist fiction devoid of any historical foundation.” Equally immovable, the Algerian delegates declared: “The Sahara is an integral part of Algeria: there can be no discussion about the integrity of Algerian territory.” It was the formula unaltered since the Soummam Conference of 1956.

By the thirteenth session on 13 June Louis Joxe was faced with a complete breakdown of the talks. The only progress made had been some modicum of agreement over the transitory period to precede full independence; but this was daily being eroded by new developments in Algeria itself — the O.A.S. and its savage onslaughts against the Muslim population. After returning to Paris for consultations with de Gaulle, Joxe informed Krim: “I am disappointed. Not discouraged, but disappointed. Your propositions are too far removed from ours.” A suspension of the talks was agreed, but — because of the evident will on both sides for peace, and a desire not to repeat the unhappy atmosphere left by Melun — it was decided not to break off negotiations. Instead there would be left behind in Evian two skeleton teams to maintain contact. On 20 July a fresh attempt was made to recommence negotiations, at the ancient Château de Lugrin which dominates Evian. It lasted only six sessions, at the second of which Tricot noted gloomily, “The word ‘
impasse
’ was pronounced.” At its close on 28 July the breakdown looked even more irreparable than it had at Evian; though Saad Dahlab endeavoured to put a brave face on things by declaring: “It’s not a rupture, but a new suspension; the beginnings of agreement have been reached; that which has been gained must not be lost; we shall keep in contact.” Meanwhile, the war continued — with renewed beastliness.

Thoughts of partition

This fresh failure at Evian, followed by Lugrin, threw de Gaulle into an unprecedented state of gloom and pessimism. As Harold Macmillan, commenting on the increasing signs of Soviet and Chinese intervention in Algeria, noted sympathetically: “Total disorder now threatened. There seemed little or no hope of any moderate or conciliatory policy being effective.” Growing ever more vocal, de Gaulle’s critics in France — like Jacques Soustelle — accused him of negotiating with indecent haste, thereby throwing away vital bargaining points to the F.L.N. and encouraging their intransigence; while on the other hand the anti-war faction — such as the “121” signatories — constantly castigated him for his dilatoriness in reaching a settlement. From July onwards de Gaulle seemed to be under fire from almost every quarter, with his political prestige at home reaching its lowest watermark to date. Abroad there was the Berlin crisis hotted up by Khrushchev, deepening stresses within the Atlantic Alliance, and — quite unexpectedly — far worse trouble with Bourguiba’s Tunisia. In frustration, de Gaulle displayed alternately pique, resentment, impatience, and — most uncharacteristically for him — uncertainty. At a cabinet meeting he was heard to remark that, if the F.L.N. would not permit him to “get out with honour”, he would “regroup and let them all go to the devil”. What he meant by “regrouping” was that hardy British favourite for de-colonising — partition. His first reaction in the aftermath of Evian was to threaten that, in the face of F.L.N. intransigence, if all else failed he would reconcentrate the
pied noir
population around Algiers and Oran and partition the country. The threat threw into despair France’s now sadly depleted friends among the Muslim community, with the first Muslim prefect, the courageous Mahdi Belhaddad, condemning it bitterly and declaring that partition would “require a million men to guard the frontier between the two states”.

In Algeria the F.L.N. called a general strike against the proposal of partition, beginning on 1 July and reaching a climax of violence on the 5th. Although Algiers and Constantine were the centres of rioting, the tide swept even such
pied noir
strongholds as Blida in the Mitidja. Accompanied by openly armed
fellaghas
, the Muslim mobs surged right into the European quarters. Some 35,000 French troops had to be called out, and by the time order had been restored eighty Muslims were dead and over 400 injured. This was almost immediately succeeded by a new offensive of F.L.N. terrorism, claiming eighteen dead and ninety-six wounded over one period of twenty-four hours. The discouraging revelation was also made that almost all of the 6,000 detainees released by de Gaulle as a
douceur
to the Evian talks had promptly rejoined the ranks of the revolt. Even more than the Algiers demonstrations of the previous December, the riots showed just how firmly in the F.L.N.’s hands the bulk of the Algerian population was now held. In the face of this, de Gaulle seemed to backtrack. On 12 July, in the speech beginning with the stirring words “France has wedded her century”,[
2
] he returned to declaring emphatically once more that France was ready to accept “an entirely independent” Algerian state.