The Europeans I met there are so hardened in opposition to everything that is being prepared, and their relations with the majority of the Muslims are so bad, that I do not imagine that they will desire, or be able, to remain quietly in an independent Algeria. The essential thing, now, is to organise their return.
This was a boldly prophetic opinion of quite outstanding significance; although Tricot admits that, when writing it, he had no conception “that the exodus would be so massive, and above all so rapid”.
De Gaulle was now determined to get rid of the “Algerian problem” at the earliest possible date. Like Henry Kissinger with Vietnam in 1973, he was a man in a hurry. Nothing else mattered. “Francisation”, “association”, all such idealistic formulae had long since been abandoned; now any claim to the Sahara must be sacrificed, and the best deal possible accepted for the pieds noirs. De Gaulle’s haste was manifest in his new year’s broadcast for 1962; in the briefest of references to Algeria he declared that France intended to terminate “one way or another” her involvement there. Then, “come what may, the year ahead will be one of regroupment in Europe and the modernisation of the major part of the French army”. In Algeria, a lifelong liberal and francophile like the writer Mouloud Feraoun felt that the Algerians were being dismissed, rather scornfully, to “manage as best they can”. At the same time, in Tunis the hard-eyed men of the G.P.R.A. could not escape noticing that de Gaulle, in his haste, was giving them a good look at his hand — or lack of one. When it came to the negotiating table again, de Gaulle’s revelation that he intended disengaging, “one way or another”, in the new year would mean placing them in a position of being able to exact the most advantageous terms.
The machinery was already in gear before de Gaulle’s new year address. In mid-December French and F.L.N. representatives had agreed on an exchange of documents, stating the positions delineated at Lugrin in the summer, and defining the areas of disagreement. Narrowing down these areas, the exchange continued over the next month. Meanwhile, for de Gaulle, the omens looked good. At its December session the United Nations, accepting that peace was in the air, had been unwontedly mild, merely inviting the interested parties to resume negotiations. After his inaugural tough-talking, Ben Khedda too had shown himself equally moderate in his public utterances.
Peace pressures on the G.P.R.A., too
In fact, the G.P.R.A. had good reasons of its own for accepting de Gaulle’s new offer to negotiate with an alacrity comparable to de Gaulle’s in issuing it. These were not, however, apparent to the impatient French at the time. To begin with, the O.A.S. was now considered by the G.P.R.A. to represent as great a potential threat to its aims as it was to those of France. “1962 was perhaps the most dangerous time of the whole war for us,” Ben Khedda told the author,
because the union between the O.A.S. and dissident French army units was creating so much provocation, in its murders and indiscriminate massacres of Muslims, and was attempting to get the Muslims to demonstrate, out of control, in Algiers. Had they succeeded there would have been an appalling massacre.
In the minds of the G.P.R.A. at that time there always existed the mistrustful fear that de Gaulle might use the excuse of such a state of anarchy to re-establish military dominion; or, alternatively, says Ben Khedda, “there was also the possibility of the French army intervening, once again, to try to impose its own solution on de Gaulle, by removing him”.
So it was imperative to reach a settlement before a complete breakdown of civil order occurred in Algeria. Just such an aim had indeed become a priority of the O.A.S.: to provoke a Muslim backlash by their ferocious outrages, which would in turn force French army riposte, thereby wrecking negotiations with the F.L.N. But it was a strategy that totally defeated its own ends; far from preventing negotiations, the O.A.S. terror was precipitating them and making both sides more disposed to concluding a final settlement.
As usual, the G.P.R.A. also had its own complex, internal motives for speeding negotiations. Though characteristically reticent on the subject of rifts within the Algerian camp — and, especially, the role played by Boumedienne — Ben Khedda himself admits the significance of the tensions existing at the time: “Our greatest danger was that, because of the O.A.S., anybody treating with the French might be regarded as a traitor by his own side.” As the final negotiations approached, the line-up seemed to be Boumedienne and the General Staff versus the “politicos”, as represented by Krim, with Ben Khedda generally siding with the latter. In his posture of dissent, Boumedienne and his supporters mirrored all the innate mistrustfulness of the Algerian character, exacerbated by the seven years of ferocious warfare to which his moudjahiddine had been subjected; mistrustful that somehow the hard fought for fruits of victory might be wrested from them by French guile. Beyond that, Boumedienne as always was resolutely determined that no concessions should be made that would permit any French influence in an independent Algeria. In opposition to Krim, Boumedienne was quite clear in his own mind that his Algeria held no future for a pied noir minority; therefore no guarantees should be offered them in the peace settlement. Meanwhile, as the O.A.S. killings of Muslims continued to mount remorselessly, so anger and impatience grew in the army — conscious of its new power with the influx of Soviet and Chinese arms reaching it — to the point where Boumedienne was constantly pressing the G.P.R.A. to toughen its line with the French negotiators. By the end of 1961 the General Staff was accusing the G.P.R.A. of “going too fast and too far” in its exchanges with the French. Rather than compromise, they left no doubts that the army would prefer to continue the war. Thus, to Krim and his camp, every day lost in bringing the French to the conference table presented an advantage to Boumedienne and the General Staff, and a weakening of the G.P.R.A.’s position.
On 4 January Ben Khedda, Krim and the other political heads of the G.P.R.A. conferred in Morocco, under the guise of a courtesy visit to King Hassan. Producing a dossier of specific charges against the General Staff, Krim proposed angrily that Boumedienne and his two lieutenants, Mendjli and Slimane, should be replaced. Boussouf, Boumedienne’s former patron, came to his rescue and a heated exchange ensued, lasting several days and ending with the break-up of the triumvirate of Krim, Boussouf and Ben Tobbal, which had wielded so great an influence over the F.L.N. leadership ever since the liquidation of Ramdane Abane four years previously. At the end of the session a vote was held on Krim’s motion, which was lost by Krim in a minority of two. On the other hand, it was agreed unanimously that negotiations with France should be resumed at the earliest. There was one proviso: full approval must be obtained from Ben Bella and his fellow detainees.
By special arrangement with de Gaulle and travelling in utmost secrecy, Krim, accompanied by Ben Tobbal, was enabled expeditiously to visit Ben Bella and his colleagues. They were now interned in luxurious new quarters at the Château d’Aulnoy, close to Melun where the first abortive peace talks had been held eighteen months previously. It was a dramatic meeting: the first time that the former members of the “exterior” had had physical contact with any F.L.N. leader in the more than five years since their sequestration.[1] It was also the first time Krim had seen them since the beginning of the war, and — moved to find on the wall of Bitat’s room a copy of the historic photograph of the six founding fathers of the revolt, taken a week before it began — he insisted in posing all those present for a similar photograph in the snowy grounds of the château. Krim was impressed by the high standard of life of the five, though only a few weeks previously they had emerged from a prolonged hunger strike aimed at improving the conditions of their fellow F.L.N. prisoners. Ben Bella seemed particularly bitter at his long imprisonment; he wanted to see de Gaulle personally humiliated, and be made to bouffer son képi. Among them there existed parallel rifts to those within the G.P.R.A., with Ben Bella and Khider tending to support Boumedienne and the hard-liners. Analysing the latest exchanges between Paris and the G.P.R.A., Ben Bella insisted on the stiffening of certain term
s and the exaction of more concessions from the French. He was particularly outraged by the proposal that the naval base of Mers-el-Kébir should remain in French hands for another fifty years. But all agreed unanimously that negotiations should now proceed; for them, at least, the successful conclusion of a peace settlement would mean liberation. After offering a toast (in orangeade) to “negotiation, victory and your liberty”, Krim returned to Tunis. The G.P.R.A. now had the green light to go ahead.
The “Yéti” preliminaries
The lengthy, wearisome, uphill climb to the final settlement now began. It would last two and a half months. Already in November the Quai d’Orsay had begun reconnoitring for a suitable site in which to hold the preliminary negotiations, which could be protracted. The choice was not an easy one; it had to be somewhere within easy reach of the Swiss frontier, so that the Algerians could sleep and lodge on neutral territory and yet attend the talks each day on French soil — as at Evian the previous year. But, unlike Evian, it also had to be somewhere well-removed from the sight of inquisitive journalists. Above all, it had to be safely beyond the reach of the O.A.S. Finally, three thousand feet up in the bleak Jura, a hideout was found which fitted remarkably all the requirements: the “Chalet du Yéti” at the hamlet of Les Rousses, half a mile from the Swiss border and connected to Geneva (twenty-two miles away) by the winding Col de la Faucille pass. To call it a “chalet” was sheer euphemism; in fact it was a bunker-like building of singularly unappealing appearance that housed the heavy snow-clearing equipment of the Ponts-et-Chaussées. Above the garages was some rather spartan accommodation used by the snow-plough teams, or by workers in the department desirous of a cheap ski holiday. Sited in a cul-de-sac well away from the public road, there could hardly have been a less likely place for high-ranking ministers to meet.
During December three pre-preliminary meetings took place at the “Yéti” between Louis Joxe and Bruno de Leusse (from the Quai d’Orsay) on one side, Saad Dahlab and Ben Yahia on the other. Progress was slow and painful (though Joxe declared stoically that it was less fatiguing than the Chamber of Deputies!). After the G.P.R.A. had given its green light, there was a further exchange at the end of January at which Joxe revealed himself unusually irritable and impatient; at one time it seemed, apparently, as if this dapper and sophisticated French intellectual might hurl himself across the table at the Algerian delegates. He requested de Gaulle to send him reinforcements. The next session in early February looked more promising, with Joxe admitting that “a hundred times as much had been achieved at a few meetings in the Jura than during weeks at Evian”. More remarkable, however, was the fact that the French Press — though giving play to rumours that high-level talks were going on somewhere — were still in the dark as to their whereabouts. By Sunday, 11 February, both sides were ready to launch into full-scale preliminaries.
Leading the French team Joxe returned, a pair of skis on his car and disguised as a winter sports amateur, and now reinforced by Robert Buron, de Gaulle’s fifty-two-year-old Minister of Works, and Jean de Broglie, Secretary of State for Saharan Affairs. In 1954 Buron had defied his party, the M.R.P., to join the Mendès-France government in order to end the war in Indo-China, and he had subsequently thrown in his lot with de Gaulle because of his belief that he alone could resolve the “Algerian dilemma”. Buron had made several visits to Algeria, his assassination had been ordered by the F.L.N., and he had been incarcerated by the rebel generals in April 1961; with his whimsical expression and jokey sense of humour, he was to help lighten the tenseness of the “Yéti” talks and later publish an outspoken diary on the proceedings. Like Joxe, Buron took elaborate precautions to fool the Press on leaving Paris for Les Rousses. Hiding his unmistakable carpet-fringe beard under a scarf, he was driven by his wife towards Orly, then was picked up on the roadside by a black Peugeot. Before leaving, a “sombre and physically exhausted” Debré had instructed Buron to be
particularly firm on the military clauses … watch out for Mers-el-Kébir and the Sahara. The Armed Forces would not understand why we were abandoning our finest and most modern naval base in the Mediterranean. And also don’t agree to our troops being pulled out too fast. Their presence is the only guarantee on which our compatriots can rely.
Throughout the coming negotiations it would seem that de Gaulle was at least as much concerned about what the military might think of real estate dispositions affecting it as about the fate of the pieds noirs.
The F.L.N. obdurate, once again
Led once more by Krim, the Algerian delegation consisted of Ben Tobbal, Saad Dahlab, Yazid, Ben Yahia, Reda Malek and Dr Mostefai. In giving his first impressions of the opposing team, Buron was rather surprised by the “Kalmuck” appearance of the silent Ben Tobbal, noting immediately that he was a hard-liner; Krim also tended to be silent, playing “with his chubby hands which were astonishingly young”, and resembling “a Corsican dignitary from the interior”; Yazid, the F.L.N.’s propaganda ace in New York, irritated Buron by his first interventions, reminding him of a “phoney Harpo Marx”. But the one who aroused the most universal respect was Saad Dahlab, Ben Khedda’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs, who, “of medium height, black hair and dark skin, is the most temperate of them all”, says Buron. To Joxe, who came greatly to admire Dahlab’s skill as a negotiator and statesmanlike qualities, he was “very direct, very sincere. A man of the south, with links to Black Africa. Completely in Krim’s confidence.”
The first day looked as unpromising as the previous summer’s talks at Evian had been. After the first quarter of an hour of discussions, on the Sahara, Buron realised it was going to be “long and painful”, and by the end of the first day he was noting: “Our interlocutors appear to be determined to discuss indefinitely the smallest details. We must absolutely oblige them to show their cards. Up till now they haven’t made one single practical proposition, and satisfy themselves by discussing rigorously our own projects word by word. This can only lead nowhere.” Yet de Gaulle’s final instructions on the eve of the conference had been, “Succeed or fail, but above all don’t allow the negotiations to prolong themselves indefinitely … moreover, don’t get stuck on detail….” For a whole week, in a stiflingly smoke-ridden room, the delegates marched back and forth over the whole well-trampled ground: the Sahara and French petroleum rights there; the problems of co-operation — financial, economic, administrative and cultural; the question of French military bases and the duration of a military presence; the length of the transitional period, and the shape of the “caretaker government”; and guarantees for the Europeans wishing to remain in Algeria.
Working conditions could hardly have been more uncomfortable; certainly the circumstances of Ben Bella and the “prisoners” of Aulnoy were considerably more sumptuous than those of the French dignitaries confined at the “Yéti”. Joxe was the only one to have a room to himself, or even a telephone; Buron slept in quarters used by day as a “withdrawing room” by the Algerians; while the unfortunate de Broglie slept in the conference room itself, in a hideous atmosphere of stale tobacco smoke, fearful of opening a window because of the arctic cold outside. To add to the overcrowding, both the French and Algerian bodyguards were positioned inside the “Yéti”, peering out through steamed-up windows for a possible O.A.S. attack, rather than around the exterior where their presence might have betrayed the location of the talks. Conditions were not much pleasanter for the Algerians, forced each day to make the round trip over the Col de Faucille in one of the most wintry Februarys of recent years. One evening their return to Switzerland was blocked by a snowdrift and they had to be dug out by a snow-plough from the “Yéti” garages. On another occasion the Algerian delegation was tracked by zealous journalists, but the driver of a following escort car, using the icy road as a pretext, resourcefully threw himself into a skid, blocking off the newsmen while the delegates escaped. But the inauspicious environment had one unintended bonus in that the informality of life in the “Yéti”, compared with the
spacious atmosphere at Evian’s Hôtel du Parc, helped break the ice and create a human contact between those who had been fighting each other so viciously over the past seven years.
Algiers: the killing escalates
Nevertheless, by Saturday, 17 February it looked as if the negotiations were drifting on to the rocks. The French delegates were under daily pressure from de Gaulle to speed things up, not to get bogged down; “Démerdez-vous!” was his repeated injunction. At the same time, each day brought fresh news from Algiers tending to push things in the opposite direction, to harden the attitude of the Algerian delegates. January and February produced a new escalation of O.A.S. outrages.
The crimes are multiplying [wrote Mouloud Feraoun in his journal for 19 January]; every day one learns of the death of a friend, of an acquaintance, of a brave man, of an innocent….
A strike of public transport for the past few days. Naively people wait for a trolley-bus to arrive which never comes; instead, a car arrives, slows down, from it some fanatic gets out, aims, fires, fells a man, gets back behind the wheel, and drives off courageously at full speed….
A Savage War of Peace Page 75