A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (86 page)

The return of Salan and Jouhaud

Of much more immediate concern to Delouvrier was the unexpected reappearance in Algiers of two retired military tycoons, whose committal to
Algérie française
had been abundantly well publicised: Generals Salan and Jouhaud. Since his abrupt recall from Algeria at the end of 1958, Salan had mouldered away in his office as military governor of Paris, smarting at the cavalier way in which de Gaulle had treated him and disastrously cherishing the conviction that without his help de Gaulle could never have succeeded in May 1958. Having reached the statutory age of sixty, Salan retired from the army on 9 June; the previous day, at the customary luncheon given in his honour in the Elysée, de Gaulle is said to have warned the five-star general: “Don’t get mixed up in politics. It’s a dirty business.” Salan made no comment.

According to a curious, but not unwise, tradition in the French army, for a stipulated period retiring generals continue to remain subject to military discipline and all its restrictions, receiving in exchange certain privileges, such as a grace and favour office and sometimes a skeleton staff. In early September Salan broke the rules by announcing his intention to return to Algiers to live out his retirement in the villa he had purchased there for that purpose — without obtaining permission from Messmer, the Minister of Defence. Delouvrier signalled Messmer to forbid Salan right of entry, but in vain. Thus, quietly one morning the “Mandarin”, his wife and daughter, disembarked from the steamer
Kairouan
to be greeted by only one former colleague at the port of the city where he had once exerted such immense authority. That same afternoon Delouvrier grasped the nettle by going to see Salan at his villa, requesting that, as his predecessor, he should appreciate the difficulties that his return could cause him, Delouvrier. Salan, impassive as ever, replied calmly that Algeria was, after all, France; that his son lay buried there; and, thirdly, that his wife liked the climate. “
J’y suis, j’y reste!
” declared Salan, but assured Delouvrier that he would undertake no political activities in Algeria. It very soon reached the ears of the Delegate-General, however, that as well as receiving visits from army officers suspected of disaffection, Salan was also in contact with leaders of the F.A.F., by whom he was clearly regarded as a chieftain providentially sent. On 14 September, using as a pretext the current “Jeanson trial” and the incitements to military disobedience by the “121”, Salan committed a second breach of discipline. Without obtaining clearance from Messmer he sent a message to a congress of the
anciens combattants
of Indo-China, in his capacity as their president, declaring sweepingly that: “It is not within the power of any authority to decide upon the relinquishment of a part of the territory where France exercises her sovereignty.”

This was clearly an intolerable challenge, both to Delouvrier and to de Gaulle himself. A week later Salan received the humiliating order to report back to the Ministry of Defence in Paris. Banned also from any further access to Algeria, the former Commander-in-Chief, once covered in every glory, could now only return to his old fiefdom as an outlaw. With hindsight, one might ask whether this was not perhaps a tactical error on the part of de Gaulle; would a Salan out in the open, in Algiers and under Delouvrier’s eye, have proved the lesser liability than the “Mandarin” henceforth taking to the shadows? But meanwhile, hardly had Salan departed than his fellow
Algérie française
general, Edmond Jouhaud, was arriving in Algiers to exacerbate Delouvrier’s problems.

Born in 1905 in humble surroundings near Oran and educated there, Jouhaud was the only one of the dissident generals to be actually a
pied noir
; as such he could not be denied entry to his home. An air force general like Challe, Jouhaud had fought in the French campaign of 1940, had joined the Free French and then commanded the air force in Indo-China in the final months of defeat. Disgusted at the sad spectacle of the Tonkinese refugees forced out of their homes in North Vietnam, in April 1957 he had arrived in Algeria to take command of the 5th Air Region. The following May he had been one of the activist officers pushing his senior, Salan, forward and had been nominated vice-president of the Algiers Committee of Public Safety. Little trusted by de Gaulle, Jouhaud had been among the first batch of purged officers, transferred home to become chief-of-staff to the air force, from which he had retired in October 1960. A burly man whose face bespoke ill-temper, Jouhaud had neither the intelligence of Salan nor the popularity of Challe. But he was probably more violently
Algérie française
than either. One of his favourite quotations was from John Dos Passos: “You can wrench a man away from his country, but you can never wrench the country away from the heart of the man.” On bidding farewell to de Gaulle, Jouhaud had delivered a forty-five minute homily on the need for it to be made clear that France had decided to “maintain the peace of France and its flag in Algeria”. Thanking him perfunctorily, de Gaulle had said he hoped Jouhaud would not “lose contact” with him.[
2
] Arrived back in Algiers, Jouhaud, like Salan, assured Delouvrier that he would cause no trouble: — then immediately set to taking up relations with the F.A.F.

Back in Paris and out of grace, Salan showed himself more than ever to be a thoroughly embittered man. He was acid about the
pieds noirs
— with whom “one can never do anything serious” — and deeply distrustful of Soustelle, who had come to him to propose a
regroupement nationale
to defend the cause of
Algérie française
. Above all, he ranted at the name of de Gaulle. On 25 October he held a Press conference, declaring total war on de Gaulle, and officially placing himself at the head of the
Algérie française
movement. But it was clear that little could be achieved in France; everywhere Salan turned he met the eye of vigilant men in raincoats detailed to keep him under twenty-four-hour surveillance. One day Salan ostentatiously ordered from the concierge of his hotel tickets for Bordeaux; then doubled round to Cook’s to switch them for a night-sleeper to Nîmes. Arriving there, Salan — accompanied by Captain Ferrandi, a sharp-tongued Corsican deserter who followed him devotedly into exile — after several other ruses to throw the watchers off his track, hopped into a taxi and drove over the Pyrenees. Once safely in Spain, Salan set up court, first in Barcelona, then in Madrid. The news of his flight shook France — except for de Gaulle, who dismissed it with the laconic observation, “I’m not surprised about
him
.”

Delouvrier: point of no return

For the harassed Delegate-General in Algiers, the hejira of Salan came as a distinct relief. But the reappearance of the two generals represented no more than the clearly visible iceberg tip of Delouvrier’s ever-mounting problems that were now rapidly reaching an intolerable peak. With the F.L.N.’s new programme of hit-and-run terrorist pinpricks, the security situation round Algiers, and inside the city itself, seemed to be deteriorating again.
Pied noir
opinion had been particularly outraged by an incident on 31 July, when a uniformed detachment of the F.L.N. had attacked unarmed bathers — men and women — on a beach at Chénoua, west of Algiers, killing a dozen. The incident had provided fresh grist to the mill of the F.A.F. extremists. This selective terrorism, plus the new assertiveness of the G.P.R.A. in the world at large since Melun, also made it harder than ever to find those “third force” Muslims, not just to stand as candidates in national or local elections, but simply to fill the various administrative posts which it had so long been a French priority to create in order to appease Muslim demands. Over the previous two years, no more than a hundred Muslims had actually been inducted into senior administrative posts.

It was, however, the Constantine Plan — the prime purpose for Delouvrier’s appointment in the first place — which continued to be his major source of concern. The visit of Premier Debré on 3 October, to celebrate the second anniversary of the Plan, furnished an occasion to survey its achievements. The agricultural programme of constructing “a thousand villages” had been virtually completed, and arable production had been augmented from 270,000 tonnes to 390,000 in one year. Over the same period industrial output had risen by ten per cent; the 400th new enterprise had just been launched; 100 milliard francs had already been invested, while a further 400 milliard were budgeted for 1961. As far as education was concerned, the number of pupils in primary schools had increased from 650,000 in 1958 to nearly a million in 1960, an improvement of well over fifty per cent. So much for the credit side of the balance. But more than half of all Algerian children still did not attend school, and technical education was paralysed for want of skilled personnel. Technicians in the new industries were equally lacking and, for all the vast efforts made, only 28,000 new jobs had actually been created — compared with the target of 400,000. In land redistribution the original target of 250,000 hectares to be shared out among 15,000 families (there were in fact an estimated 600,000 needing land) had been revised drastically downwards to 41,000 hectares to be shared among a paltry 1,800 families. Although forty-five per cent of the investment funds for 1961 would come from government sources, little more than a quarter of the remainder was forthcoming from
pied noir
enterprises — justly apprehensive about the future. With each new advance Gaullist policy took towards Algerian independence, Delouvrier began to question more and more the honesty of a programme of enticing firms in metropolitan France to take a stake in Algeria.

Finally, by the time of Debré’s October visit, Delouvrier’s relations with the Commander-in-Chief, “Casse-Noisette” Crépin, had reached a nadir Despite the stresses “the Barricades” had imposed, Delouvrier deeply missed his harmonious relationship with Challe. Always rather aggressively cold towards Delouvrier, Crépin had become progressively more partisan to the
Algérie française
factions in his command, and he enraged the Delegate-General by criticising him openly to Debré. The Europeans were “in a state of permanent fear”, complained Crépin, implying that Delouvrier was at fault for never making the least encouraging noise about “francisation”. Delouvrier’s protests gained little redress from Debré; meanwhile, his communication with the Elysée continued to offer minimal satisfaction.

By the beginning of November Delouvrier’s isolation became absolute. On the 4th de Gaulle made a new broadcast to the nation. It was, he explains, designed to appear “full of resolution and assurance”, because recent bitterness marking the budget discussions for the first time since 1958 had been taken by him to be “an indication of the intense impatience and anxiety of the French people”. But what he said about Algeria was to take developments one vital stage further, showing that he was determined to execute his ideas at a faster pace. Having assumed the leadership of France, he had embarked upon “a new course” leading, he explained “from government of Algeria by metropolitan France to an Algerian Algeria. That means an emancipated Algeria…an Algeria which, if the Algerians so wish — and I believe this to be the case — will have its own government, its own institutions, its own laws”. Later he slipped in a reference to “an Algerian Republic, which will one day exist, but has never yet existed”. As so often with de Gaulle’s more controversial and decisive utterances, there was an element of the impromptu about this first pronouncing of the fateful words, “an Algerian Republic”. They had not figured in the typescript; de Gaulle, as was his wont had added them in as he went along. Tricot — in common with the other Elysée advisors — thought the words “bad and dangerous”. Pressed by them, de Gaulle enquired whether — since the broadcast was pre-taped — it would be possible to delete the offending phrase. The technicians replied that the radio broadcast could be doctored, yes, but there would be no time to re-record the television programme. De Gaulle supposedly then shrugged his shoulders, saying: “Well, in that case, let it stand.”

Since the step taken at Melun it was perhaps only logical that what de Gaulle now said about an “Algerian Algeria” with its right to secede (which, by extension, could surely lead to nothing but “an Algerian Republic”) had to be said sooner or later. But, as Tricot noted, it meant the disappearance of “one of the elements of the triptych,
francisation”
. Reactions were tempestuous. Debré, says de Gaulle, “could not hide his chagrin” — which was an understatement. After all he had been required to say in the name of
francisation
, Debré in fact felt compelled to offer his resignation that day. De Gaulle who privately called Debré his “Saint Sebastian” — “every time he receives an arrow, he suffers, but that gives him pleasure!” — waved it aside, saying, “No, Debré; remain I still have need of you.” Debré remained. The next day de Gaulle’s comrade-in-arms and friend of fifty years standing, Marshal Juin, broke with him publicly, accusing de Gaulle of “deserting our Algerian brothers”. In Madrid, Claude Paillat recalls watching the “Mandarin”, Salan, perform a curious
pas seul
in an attempt to tune a minute transistor radio he was clutching in the palm of his hand. As de Gaulle’s speech came feebly through, he grunted “Oh! Oh!” on deciphering the words “Algerian Republic”. Afterwards he declared to the Press, “from now on, every man must face up to his responsibilities…the time for evasions is over”.