The French/Algerian War
Background
 Algeria is a North African country which is populated by mostly
Arab/Muslims
 France first occupied Algeria in 1830
 By 1954, more than 1 million Europeans lived there, many of them had lived
in Algeria for generations
 Algeria was considered part of France and therefore, couldn’t simply be
given up
The War
 A group called the FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale) were Algerian
Nationalists who called for the end of French Rule
 The FLN opened the conflict on November 1, 1954, with a horrible night of
terrorist attacks against French targets all over Algeria
 France’s response was to send in Troops (More than 500,000 by the end of
the war)
 From the beginning, the FLN realized they could never stand against French
Firepower, therefore they fought a Guerilla war
 They used hit and run, ambush, and terrorist tactics against the French.
 Also, the FLN brutally killed anyone who they suspected as not being on
their side (Murder and Mutilation were common as FLN gangs roamed the
countryside)
 The French responded by taking revenge on civilians who were suspected of
supporting the FLN
The End of the War
 In 1959, a new French President began negotiations with the FLN
 Also the FLN declared themselves the Government and were recognized by
Arab countries and Russia
 In 1962 a truce was worked out and Algerians voted almost unanimously for
independence
 The French Army and most French Civilians left in Disgrace
The Truth About Algeria
It's both true and false to say that Algeria is to France
as Vietnam is to the United States. True, because the
Algerian independence conflict from 1954 to 1962
embroiled France in a colonial war that cost tens of
thousands of French lives (not to mention the huge
cost in Algerian lives), triggered violent protests, and
brought about a change of leadership in the home
country. False, because while the United States has
largely gotten over Vietnam, it seems that France,
four decades later, still hasn't recovered from Algeria.
Such is the lesson of l'affaire Aussaresses, the moralpolitical drama that has consumed French public
opinion since early May. That's when Gen. Paul
Aussaresses, an 83-year-old reserve officer, published
memoirs in which he calmly confessed to the torture
and murder of dozens of Algerian civilians between
1955 and 1957—practices that, he said, were both
common and known to France's political leaders,
including the late François Mitterrand. Mitterrand, who
in the 1980s and 1990s became France's longestserving president, was justice minister at the time.
Here's a sample of Aussaresses' prose, as published in
the liberal Le Monde of Paris (May 3): "Those we
General Paul Aussaresses (Photo: AFP)
brought to Tourelles [a torture center run by the
French army's intelligence service] were sufficiently implicated in terrorist activity that there
was no way we were going to release them alive. On busy days, when all the regiments were
overwhelmed with prisoners, they would send me everybody they had no time to interrogate.
At Tourelles, as at the regimental headquarters, torture was always used if a prisoner refused
to talk....When the suspects had talked and seemed to have nothing more to say...my men
would take a batch of them out in the bush, 20 kilometers or so from Algiers, shoot them down
with a machine-gun burst, then bury them.
"Regimental headquarters also sent me prisoners they had interrogated and who were no
longer useful. Nobody ever asked me what I planned to do with these people. Long story
short: when the army wanted to get rid of somebody, he would end up at Tourelles." After
recounting incident after incident of torture and summary execution, Aussaresses said he'd be
willing to do it all again.
QUESTIONS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What does it mean to say Algeria is France’s Vietnam?
What is “l'affaire Aussaresses”?
Which French president was implicated in the affair?
What was General Aussaresses job in Algeria?
What happened to Algerians who were sent to Aussaresses?
6. Do you feel that Aussaresses, an 83 year old man, should go to prison for his
confessions?