1 June: the Assembly accepts
On Sunday 1 June de Gaulle presented himself to the National Assembly, the first time he had entered it since January 1946. The terms he announced for taking over were: full powers to rule by decree for six months, an enforced “holiday” of the Assembly for four months, and a mandate to submit a new constitution to the country. When the Coty communication was read out, pandemonium reigned; the Communists thumped their desks and shouted, “Le fascisme ne passera pas!” For Algeria, the prime cause of his being there that day, de Gaulle proffered no formula—any more than he had done in his previous pronouncements since 13 May. Seated in symbolic solitude on the empty front benches, he was voted into power by 329 to 224 votes. With equal symbolism, a black and violent storm broke out while the vote was in progress. De Gaulle was manifestly disappointed at being unable to obtain a greater show of unanimity from his countrymen’s representatives. Also disappointed were Lagaillarde and the several hundred “volunteers” from Algiers hovering in the bistros near the government quarter, and momently awaiting orders to move in; they would be still more disappointed when the list of de Gaulle’s first cabinet members was released. As de Gaulle left the Assembly and got into his car he seemed to be completely unaware of the rain that was sheeting down. The Gaullist era had begun.
[1] It resembled in more ways than one the Ulster Defence Force.
[2] On his secret insurrectionary mission to France to prepare for the para landings in May 1958, it was “Baudin” that Lagaillarde chose as his pseudonym.
[3] When asked by the author why he had left Algiers before de Gaulle came to power, Lacoste explained, “I didn’t want to leave in disorder, like Soustelle—so I thought it was much better to go in discretion, and not submit enflamed Algeria to another tearing-apart demonstration like that one…. So, I went quietly—no flags—no music. I left my wife behind to give the impression that I would come back; though I had decided, once and for all, to leave.”
[4] Soustelle, who says he was in Salan’s office when Dulac returned to render an account of his meeting with de Gaulle, claims that (quoting Dulac) de Gaulle had added “If I do not succeed, alors faites le nécessaire.” Soustelle took this to mean that de Gaulle favoured a military take-over if all else failed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Je Vous Ai Compris”:
May–December 1958
The leader must aim high, see big, judge widely, thus setting himself apart from the ordinary people who debate in narrow confines.
Charles de Gaulle, 1932
De Gaulle to Algeria: the “True Cross of Lorraine”
THUS ended the series of disjointed incidents, accidents and coincidences which comprised the “revolution” of May 1958. De Gaulle had let the country go to the very edge of the abyss and gaze down on the ultimate catastrophe of civil war before putting out a hand to pull it back. Yet what at the time looked like hesitation and procrastination carried to dangerous lengths must now seem like a hand played with consummate skill. By waiting, de Gaulle had come back vested, first of all, in an acceptable degree of legitimacy; and secondly, he had not come back as the army’s man. If it were not for these two factors, it can be doubted whether the Algerian war could have ended without civil war in France.
Nevertheless, those May events in Algiers that led to his coming created illusions sufficient to endanger greatly the immediate path ahead for de Gaulle. On the one hand, Lagaillarde and the more excitable leaders of the pieds noirs were left with the dangerously heady conviction that it was their actions that had brought the Fourth Republic tumbling; just as the “ultras” had defeated Blum-Viollette in 1936, sabotaged the statute of 1947, and forced Mollet to withdraw Catroux in 1956. “We were the springboard de Gaulle used to save France,” they said, “and so henceforth he will dance to our tune.” On the other hand, the army leaders in Algeria had just the same feeling; as one of Lartéguy’s para officers remarks in Les Prétoriens, it was the first time “that we have won not a battle, but a multitude. We shan’t be able to forget it.” They did not.
Now that the ball was over, it would be difficult for both pieds noirs and the army to come down to reality. The trouble was that each separate faction let itself wallow in the hopes that de Gaulle would be all things to all men. In the cynical words of Georges Bidault, everybody from Right to Left, from the army to Bourguiba and even the F.L.N., felt in the first heady weeks of June that they each possessed “a piece of the True Cross of Lorraine”. In his enigmatic utterances the saviour did little to dispel such tenets, so that the eventual disillusion would be all the greater. Critics and adversaries of de Gaulle could—with reason—accuse him of every manner of volte-face in his handling of Algeria, but with their eyes blinkered by the immediacy of the war itself they were unable to see on what de Gaulle’s gaze was fixed. From his great height the eyes quested far over the heads of lesser humans to the peaks of a distant promised land. If there was one thing in the pursuit of which he was unwavering all through his life, it was the grandeur de la France, dreamed of in those solitary years in the wilderness. In the long term nothing else mattered, or would be allowed to stand in its way, and this should be retained in the mind as a key to all the enigma of his subsequent actions. He would achieve his dream; even though in the course of it Algeria would be lost, had to be lost. Hand in hand with this conviction of la grandeur went a certainty that destiny had earmarked him to rediscover it for France.
Visiting de Gaulle in Paris in June shortly after his investiture, Prime Minister Macmillan recorded: “His manner is calm, affable, and rather paternal. But underneath this new exterior, I should judge that he is just as obstinate as ever.” Few would suffer from this obstinacy more than Macmillan himself. And de Gaulle was sixty-seven, having already completed more than the work of one lifetime, and with such notable attributes of age as a nagging awareness of the brevity of time. Also, to the majority of his countrymen, especially those in Algeria, as Tournoux remarks: “The best known of Frenchmen remained the least known…a monolith of indecipherable hieroglyphs”. Thus a sense of destiny, paternalism, obstinacy, courage, enigma, an inherent shortage of sympathy for the predicament of the pieds noirs, the impatience of age: these were the qualifications de Gaulle took with him on his first trip to Algeria on 4 June.
As de Gaulle arrived in his special Caravelle, the sky, recalls Lartéguy, was of “that evangelic blue depicted on certain pious faces”. But in that blue there were already clouds apparent. Those on the Committee of Public Safety who had brought about the advent of de Gaulle were not happy with his first cabinet list; there seemed to be too much concession to the Left (Guy Mollet had been appointed vice-premier); there were too many little-known functionaries among the new ministers (of the activists of May only Michel Debré, made Minister of Justice, had been rewarded). The faithful Delbecque received no post, having offended by openly criticising the first choices, while even Soustelle, as too-dedicated an apostle of Algérie française, had been appointed nothing more than “Minister-Delegate” (or “Minister-Relegate”, as the punsters muttered). An angry altercation took place after the hotheads of the C.S.P., Martel and Ortiz, had the temerity to imprison briefly two of de Gaulle’s accompanying ministers while he spoke from the Gouvernement-Général—a barely disguised hint at the limitations of de Gaulle’s power. Then, shortly after 7 p.m., wearing the uniform of a brigadier-general but bare-headed, de Gaulle appeared on the balcony where his name had been so frequently and fervently invoked during the preceding May days. Among the vast, expectant crowd were many Muslims; but behind their impassive, weatherbeaten, unsmiling faces it was as difficult to decipher what was really in their minds as it had been during those euphoric moments of fraternisation in May. Introducing de Gaulle, Salan—showing rare signs of emotion—declared, “Our great cry of joy and hope has been heard!” For a full three minutes de Gaulle was unable to make himself heard. Now followed the opening sentence that was to be repeated, interpreted and misinter
preted over the ensuing years; stretching his long arms in a vast V-sign above his head, he pronounced:
“Je vous ai compris …!”
“Vive l’Algérie française!”
The crowd went wild. Men as well as women wept; Muslims gesticulated with V-signs. In this one phrase de Gaulle had touched the hearts of the pieds noirs and established a remarkable harmony with the multitude in the Forum. It may also have saved his life; for there is a story that in an apartment building facing the “G-G” was an expert marksman and an unrepentant Pétainist belonging to a splinter-group of “ultras” who were convinced of de Gaulle’s intention to abandon Algeria. His telescopic sights were aimed on de Gaulle in the first of some thirty assassination attempts. But when he heard the magic words, the would-be assassin leant his rifle up against the wall, listened to the rest of the speech, and finally abandoned his attempt. De Gaulle continued:
I know what has occurred here. I see what you have sought to accomplish. I see that the road you have opened in Algeria is that of renewal and fraternity.
I say renewal in every respect. But, very rightly, you wanted to begin at the beginning; that is, with our institutions; and that is why I am here.
I say fraternity, for you will provide the magnificent example of men who … share in the same ardour and live hand in hand.
Well then, of this I have taken cognisance in the name of France! And I declare that from this day forward, France considers that in the whole of Algeria there is only one category of inhabitants, that there are only Frenchmen in the full sense [à part entière], with the same rights and the same duties.
After paying tribute to the “disciplined” French army, he concluded with an appeal to “those who, through despair,” had joined the F.L.N.: “I, de Gaulle, open to them the doors of reconciliation. Never more than here, nor more than this evening, have I felt how beautiful, how great, how generous is France! Long live the Republic. Long live France!”
Those looking for it noted that, despite all the oblique references to “integration”, de Gaulle had specifically neglected to proclaim: “Vive l’Algérie française!” But the triumphal tour continued, embracing all the country’s major centres. At Oran on the 6th Captain Pierre Sergent of the Foreign Legion watched with “heart-beating pride” as the Caravelle flew in, with its escort of Mistral fighters in V-formation. There de Gaulle declared, in what seemed like more explicit terms: “Yes, France is here, with her vocation. She is here forever.” That same day, to a vast crowd in the nearby port of Mostaganem, and seemingly carried away by the infectious mood that fed upon itself, in his last address de Gaulle uttered the longed-for words, for the first and the last time: Vive l’Algérie française! Vive la République!”
That night the Caravelle flew him back to Paris, leaving behind an exultant moral triumph of almost unimaginable proportions. He had enthralled alike pieds noirs, Muslims and paras. At the same time, in every dealing with the representatives of the all-powerful Committee of Public Safety he had left absolutely no doubt as to who was in control. To the Europeans specifically, he had the unique advantage of never having been associated with France’s post-war Algerian policy, in any aspect. His hands were clean. For the Muslim population, it was the first time that any French leader had addressed himself to them directly, and the instinctive and unreasoning confidence held in his person was immense. So, too, was the overall impact of his authority, and the opportunities open to it. At the time of the historic Liberation promenade down the Champs Elysées in 1944, Georges Bidault recalls how
Practically no one shouted “Long live France!” but everyone called out “Long live de Gaulle!” In moments of great distress or great joy, the crowd has a natural tendency to turn to one man and make him the symbol of their need to admire or to be protected.
Now, in this first week of June 1958, the masses similarly turned to the magic of his person, and momentarily it seemed as if there were nothing that could not be achieved if only he willed it. It now only remained for the world to decipher precisely what de Gaulle had meant in the various utterances of this his first whistle-stop tour of Algeria, and how he was going to follow them up.
That he was already speaking in two voices, however—one for the elated masses, another for his own private, clairvoyant pessimism—seems to be indicated by a coldly cynical remark de Gaulle uttered to quell the jubilation of an over-eager aide immediately on his return from this peak of triumph: “L’Afrique est foutue, et l’Algérie avec!” Of his Mostaganem exclamation of “Vive l’Algérie française!” which its exponents would regard as the holy writ, he later explained dismissively that it had just “escaped” from him; it was superficial, just like talking about “French Canada”. On the other hand, those even more controversial words, Je vous ai compris, de Gaulle states were “seemingly spontaneous but in reality carefully calculated”; their purpose was “to establish emotional contact”. But just what did this mean? De Gaulle explained later that his whole message of June was “tantamount to saying that the day would come when the majority amongst them could decide the destiny of all”. Certainly, however, no one who heard the words agreed on understanding exactly what de Gaulle had understood. The army for one had become “dupes”, said Charles-Henri Favrod, to his “incantatory” language. At one moment army jeeps driving through the streets were heard to broadcast such wild messages to the populace as this: “Frenchmen, you have just achieved a great victory, not only over the fellaghas, but over the enemies of the interior, traitors, defeatists, intellectuals, Jews….” There was an equally large gulf in “understanding” among the Muslims, between those who had waved tricolours and shouted “Vive de Gaulle!” “Vive l’Algérie française!” in the Forum, and the young Algerians on the 14 July march past in Paris who (according to Simone de Beauvoir) “pulled green and white banners out from under their shirts and waved them defiantly”.
It was the people to whom the enigmatic words had been principally addressed—the pieds noirs—however, who understood them least well. In all his speeches during that first tour de Gaulle, by constantly repeating the phrase “only Frenchmen à part entière”, made it fairly clear that he was thinking in terms of equality between the races and thus, by extension, eventually majority rule. What de Gaulle “understood” about the pieds noirs was certainly by no means as flattering as they wished to believe, and as the realisation of this sank in Je vous ai compris became the bitterest of insults.
Such is the uncertainty of human communication.
Slow quest for a policy
Through the summer and into the autumn of 1958, as de Gaulle evolved his policy, there followed “great gusts of words”, said Simone de Beauvoir caustically. The sonorous speeches on Algeria sometimes seemed “like the Seine itself, full of meandering loops followed by a long spurt forward”, says Edward Behr. Five times de Gaulle flew to Algeria. But there appeared to be disappointingly little immediacy in his moves to end the war. Later de Gaulle and his apologists could offer good cause for this slow and deliberate pace; nevertheless, it was over these first months that the great momentum of May and June was to be tragically frittered away—to the immense advantage of the F.L.N. De Gaulle stated his objectives:
first, to bring Algiers completely under the authority of Paris, secondly, to show the rebels that France was aiming at peace, a peace which she would ultimately wish to conclude with them and which she counted on to preserve her ties with Algeria, and thirdly, to reinforce our military presence in such a way that nothing that happened in the field would interfere with our decisions.
Yet once the emotionalism of those “great gusts of words” had been flensed, the flesh and bones of the programme looked disappointingly like the mixture as before—even though perhaps applied with extra impetus. Still more effort and money would be expended on the Algerian economy and on education. New efforts would be made to win the war militarily. Lacoste’s loi-cadre was swept away, but there would be a single electoral roll, with free elections
, and now with a date fixed. There would be a referendum to say Yes or No to de Gaulle’s remodelled constitution giving the republic a new backbone of steel; all Frenchmen would cast their vote in it, and countries of the Commonwealth would be entitled to decide whether or not they wished to be associated with it. It would be the first occasion that the Algerians were to be invited to vote on the new single electoral role. This was to be on 28 September. Then, in November, there would be elections for the National Assembly to confirm de Gaulle as Prime Minister, followed, in December, by new presidential elections.
Referendum triumph: electoral shortcomings
In the run-up to the referendum, de Gaulle with apparently inexhaustible energy stumped the French Commonwealth expounding the merits of his constitution. The alternatives were baldly stated; either continued association, with all the weighty material benefits that this would bring; or total severance. “Make no mistake,” de Gaulle told the principal doubter, Sékou Touré of Guinée, “the French Republic you are dealing with is no longer the one you knew, which preferred expediency to decision…. She lived for a long time without Guinée. She will live for an equally long time if she is severed from her.” Challenging words. For Algeria, however, the question posed was different; it was not yet one of self-determination (that would come later), but essentially one of carte blanche confidence in de Gaulle and his policy—whatever that might prove to be.
On 28 September all Algeria—women included—went to the polls for the first time “like Europeans”, casting their votes in a single electoral college. The referendum proved to be a huge personal success for de Gaulle everywhere. In France the Communists and their allies had fought hard against it, with Sartre speaking of “this constitution of contempt” and declaring that he would “rather vote for God, He is more modest.” At most both the Gaullists and their enemies reckoned on a sixty to sixty-five per cent “oui” vote in metropolitan France; but in the event it totalled over eighty per cent, on a record turnout of eighty-five per cent. It was the clearest possible mandate for de Gaulle (Simone de Beauvoir felt “like crying” at such “a sinister defeat … an enormous collective suicide”). Abroad, the results were even more remarkable; all Black Africa voted “oui” with imposing majorities, save only Sékou Touré’s Guinée, which opted for outer darkness. In Algeria, despite every threat and blandishment by the F.L.N. to abstain, there was an astonishingly high turnout of 79.9 per cent and a “oui” majority representing 76.4 per cent of the total electorate and 96.6 per cent of those who voted. Pressure and propaganda by the Cinquième Bureau was undoubtedly strong, but there was little evidence of any fraudulent vote-rigging as had been known in Algeria in earlier times.
A Savage War of Peace Page 44