by Philip Short
13. Mali was at that time known as French Sudan and Bénin as Dahomey.
14. Mitterrand, François, Aux frontières de l’Union Française, Julliard, 1953, reprinted in Politique, Vol. 1, pp. 67–8.
15. The distinction was analogous to that between Pétainists and maréchalistes. But whereas the maréchalistes eventually abandoned the Marshal and, in most cases, joined the Resistance, the ‘sentimental Gaullists’ all subsequently rallied to the General’s cause.
16. According to Louis Deteix, in the autumn of 1950, Mitterrand and a group of friends met at Cluny to discuss how to speed up the adhesion of former PoWs to the party.
17. The two right-wing parties backing Mitterrand this time were the RGR, the Rally of Left-wing Republicans, and the UIPRN, the Union of Independents, Peasants and National Republicans. Although the names were different, they covered the same part of the political spectrum as the right-wing parties which had supported him five years before.
18. Under the Fourth Republic, the holding of legislative elections did not automatically entail the government’s resignation. In March 1951, Pleven had been replaced as Prime Minister by Henri Queuille, who maintained essentially the same Cabinet, including Mitterrand as Minister of Overseas Territories. After the elections on June 17, Queuille’s government had remained in office, unaffected by the changes in parliament, until July 10, when it lost a vote of confidence. Pleven was then asked to form a new government and was sworn in a month later, on August 11 1951.
19. Mitterrand had been sniping at two of Pleven’s allies in the Party – the Secretary-General, Joseph Lanet, and an influential conservative, General Chevance-Bertin, who had estates in Africa and supported the settlers’ views.
20. In 1946, the party won 23 seats with four affiliates; in 1951, 13 seats with five affiliates. The RDA joined the UDSR group in January 1952. In the late 1940s, when the ‘dedicated Gaullists’ were preparing their departure, the UDSR’s parliamentary strength fell below 14, the minimum required to form a group, and it had to affiliate briefly with the Radicals in order to maintain its membership of parliamentary commissions.
21. In the winter of 1946, when France was still hesitating over whether to seek a military or a political solution in Indochina, de Gaulle had strongly advised Léon Blum, who was interim Prime Minister, to support the High Commissioner, Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu, who advocated the use of force. Three months later d’Argenlieu was dismissed for insubordination. By then it was too late: the war was under way. The historian, Georgette Elgey, has described it as one of de Gaulle’s worst misjudgements.
22. The text is available at http://www.cvce.eu/obj/Address_given_by_Winston_Churchill_at_the_Congress_of_Europe_in_The_Hague_7_May_1948-en-58118da1-af22-48c0-bc88-93cda974f42c.html
23. The Western European Union (WEU) was created by Britain, France and the Benelux countries as a mutual defence organisation two months before the Congress at The Hague in May 1948. The treaty was modified in October 1954, when Italy and Germany joined. The organisation was dissolved in 2011.
24. Among those helping Mendès that day was Edgar Faure, a fellow Radical whom he had known since they had been law students together. Two and a half years earlier, Faure, who had been invested as Prime Minister and had named Mitterrand his Minister of State, was about to announce the list of the new Cabinet to the press when Mitterrand stopped him and suggested that he look at it again. Sure enough, when Faure redid his calculations, he found that the Radicals and the CNIP were over-represented. Another minister who was present, Édouard Bonnefous, remembered how impressed Faure had been by Mitterrand’s mastery of the subject.
25. The list which Mitterrand helped to draw up named six Radicals to the Cabinet (plus three junior ministers); five Gaullists (plus four); two UDSR (plus two); two Christian Democrats (plus one); and one CNIP (plus two).
26. In July 1950, Auriol considered Mitterrand as a possible Prime Minister but ruled him out, presumably on the grounds that he was too young and lacking in experience. Three years later, when Mitterrand resigned from the government of Joseph Laniel in September 1953, in protest against its policies in North Africa, he was already seen as destined for higher things. His colleague, Édouard Bonnefous, wrote: ‘If [next time round] a Socialist would be unable to get enough support to head a left-wing majority, might it not be possible to call on someone from the UDSR? In that case, François Mitterrand could legitimately aspire to . . . play a leading role’.
27. The demonstrators who died had been carrying banners calling for Algerian independence.
28. According to Robert Mitterrand, the alleged discovery of the arms stockpile and the printing of the tracts were among the reasons which Baylot gave Mitterrand that week to justify banning the July 14 demonstration.
29. Mendès was also kept awake all night by telephone calls, including one from President Coty, urging him not to remove Baylot. He reportedly told Mitterrand next morning: ‘I wasn’t sure whether you were right to want Mr Baylot’s departure. Now, after all these interventions on his behalf, I know you were right. Do it straight away.’
30. Mitterrand, Robert, Frère de quelqu’un, Robert Laffont, 1988, p. 306.
31. The Cabinet met on July 10, a Saturday. Baylot was dismissed the following Monday, July 12.
32. According to Robert Mitterrand, Mendès cited pressure of work when he tried to explain to Mitterrand afterwards why he had failed to inform him of the accusations against him.
33. The boutique rejoiced in the name La Colombe Blanche (‘The White Dove’).
34. When the case came to court in 1956, Mitterrand acknowledged having ‘a doubt’ about the nature of Baylot’s role.
35. An independent right-wing MP, Jean-Louis Vigier, was told by Dides of Mitterrand’s alleged involvement at the same time as Fouchet. Vigier informed Coty and selected journalists.
36. Journal officiel, 3 December 1954.
37. Pierre Nicolay, then Mitterrand’s Chief of Staff, remembered Mitterrand being ‘sickened’ by Mendès’s conduct. Pierre Charpy, who saw him often during this period, described him as ‘completely demoralised’. Thirty years later, in 1983, Mitterrand told Catherine Nay: ‘He betrayed me’. In the last years of his life, in the 1990s, Mitterrand played down the importance of the rift, telling François Stasse that ‘it didn’t count for much’ and Georges-Marc Benamou that claims that he had resented Mendès’s attitude were ‘false’.
38. Thus, on September 19, the day after Dides’s arrest, when Mendès visited the Nièvre to inaugurate a war memorial to members of the Resistance, he spoke affectionately of his ‘good friend, François Mitterrand’. Six weeks later, in a speech to the UDSR, Mitterrand returned the compliment, praising the Prime Minister’s ‘talent and authority’. In December, Mendès spoke in parliament of the ‘esteem, affection and confidence’ he bore Mitterrand, and sent him personal letters of encouragement during the crisis. Still more significant was Mendès’s defence of Mitterrand during the Observatory Affair five years later.
39. There was a curious coda. In January 1955, Dides sent André Dubois, Baylot’s successor as chief of police, a letter retracting all his allegations against Mitterrand and acknowledging the Minister’s ‘patriotic sentiments’. For reasons that were never fully explained, Dubois did not inform Mitterrand but instead transmitted the letter to Mendès France, who regarded it as insincere because it was written at a time when Dides, who had been suspended, was trying to win reinstatement. In another disastrous misjudgement, the Prime Minister decided not to make it public. Had it been published, the arguments of the Right would have been exposed as hollow. Mitterrand did not learn of its existence until many years later.
40. Mitterrand also thought it possible that the Gaullists had mounted the affair in an attempt to destabilise the Fourth Republic.
41. Georgette Elgey, whose research on this period is unequalled, speculated that Dides might initially have reported the leaks in good faith after having himself been deceived
by Baranès. Roland Dumas, who represented Mitterrand when he gave evidence at the trial in 1956; André Rousselet, who worked with Jean-Paul Martin in Mitterrand’s private office; Baylot’s successor, André Dubois; and even Pierre Mendès France, all, to varying extents, shared that view, which Mitterrand himself angrily rejected. If they were right, it would mean there was no political conspiracy at the outset, merely a series of misunderstandings which created a muddle which others subsequently exploited for their own political ends. The theory is beguiling: muddle is much more common in politics than conspiracy. The problem is that it ignores two salient and irrefutable facts. Firstly, when Baranès gave Dides information about the leak of the Defence Council meeting in May, the latter immediately reported it to the then Interior Minister, a conservative Radical politician named Léon Martinaud-Duplat; but when the second leak occurred, he bypassed his own minister and went to Fouchet instead. He claimed to have done so because he thought Mitterrand might be the leaker, even though he must have known that to be false, or, at least, extremely improbable, since the leak in May had occurred at a time when Mitterrand had no government post. Why did he denounce a man whom he knew was almost certainly innocent? Secondly, and even more damning, in his conversation with Fouchet, Dides kept silent about the leak in May. The only logical reason for him not to mention it was that he had an ulterior motive.
Elgey suggested that he might have approached Fouchet because Jean-Paul Martin, representing Mitterrand, refused to see him when he sought a meeting with the Minister after Baylot’s dismissal, which had led to the disbanding of the anti-communist ‘intelligence network’ which Dides had created. But that is standing chronology on its head. Baylot was fired on July 12; Dides had approached Fouchet ten days beforehand. On July 2, Dides had no obvious reason to wish to harm Mitterrand, absent a political motive.
There remains, therefore, a prima facie case that the attack was mounted for political (or, conceivably, unexplained personal) reasons. Whether it was the work of Dides alone, of Dides and Baylot, or of a larger group, may never be known. But once it was under way, it was exploited to the hilt by right-wing politicians who saw it as a bludgeon with which to beat the government. As with most political ‘affairs’ in France, the initial cause was less important than the use that was made of it.
6: Requiem for Empire
1. Journal officiel, June 4 1953.
2. The conference was to have been held in June 1954.
3. The FLN’s decision to launch armed struggle, as Mitterrand later acknowledged, was a direct consequence of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. If the Viet Minh could outfight the French army, Ben Bella and his colleagues reasoned, there was no reason why Arabs could not do so too.
4. On October 30 Mitterrand sent instructions to the Governor-General to carry out ‘the necessary arrests’. By the time the order reached Algiers, the attacks had already occurred.
5. In the three months to February 1955, 67 civilians and 46 soldiers died, almost all of them Algerians. The strength of the armed forces during the same period rose from 57,200 to more than 80,000 men. Naval and air force units were also reinforced.
6. Journal officiel, November 12 1954.
7. The reforms were discussed by the Cabinet on January 5 1955. Mendès France’s government fell on February 6.
8. ‘For a political leader,’ Mitterrand said, ‘there is only one ambition: to rule. Those who aspire merely to be Under-Secretaries of State are not political figures, they are just bit players.’
9. France Observateur, January 13 1955.
10. He was quoted as saying: ‘During the parliamentary campaign of 1956, everyone thought I was tired or even ill. In fact, I was suffocated by rage that I was still not Prime Minister.’ One may wonder whether he spoke quite so bluntly, but he certainly had high hopes of being invited to form a government. Whatever the cause of his malaise, it was serious enough for Georges Dayan’s brother, Jean, a doctor, to have to give him an injection through the seat of his trousers before he mounted the tribune to speak at election meetings.
11. Under the Fourth Republic, the Justice Minister was normally second in order of protocol after the Prime Minister. As Interior Minister under Mendès France, he had ranked third in the Cabinet.
12. The rebels killed 123 men, women and children at Philippeville, of whom 71 were French nationals, the remainder, alleged ‘collaborators’. By the French army’s account, 1,273 Arabs died in the reprisals. The FLN put the figure at 12,000.
13. The journalist, Françoise Giroud, who saw Mitterrand often at that time, said he realised that by signing the decree authorising military courts he had made his position untenable but he could see no good way out.
14. Malye, François and Stora, Benjamin, François Mitterrand et la guerre d’Algérie, Calmann-Lévy, 2010, pp. 116 & 119.
15. Mitterrand did protest, however, when a few days later the police searched the home of a distinguished professor, Henri Marrou, who had attacked Mollet’s policies in Le Monde.
16. François Stasse quoted members of his entourage describing him as ‘sullen and ill at ease’ during this period.
17. ‘Speech to the USDR Congress’, October 27 1956. Mitterrand’s position on Algerian self-government had begun to change shortly before Suez, largely because of pressure from within the party. But it was a slow and reluctant conversion. Not until June 1957 did he fully embrace the idea that Algeria should be self-governing,
18. Bourgès-Maunoury responded that ‘to dishonour those who have the task of carrying out military operations . . . is infamous’. To demonstrate his willingness to punish military abuses, he summoned the commander-in-chief in Algeria, General Salan, to Paris in April and asked him to put an end to brutal interrogations and the pillaging of Arab shops. Salan replied: ‘If the political authorities think we have carried out [our work] badly, they have only to relieve us of police duties.’ After a long silence, Bourgès-Maunoury told him to keep on as before. The arm-wrestling between Bourgès and Mitterrand continued. Later that month, the Defence Minister asked Mitterrand to help stop the ‘campaigns of denigration’ against the army, which, he said, were being orchestrated by the FLN, a none too subtle hint that the Justice Ministry was playing into the hands of the rebels. When Reliquet obtained Robert Lacoste’s agreement to try the most notorious offenders, Bourgès-Maunoury objected that ‘the complaints against the soldiers are unfounded’.
19. Even within the confines of the Cabinet, Mitterrand appears to have said little. Gaston Defferre claimed that he denounced the use of torture, but other ministers had no memory of his having done so.
20. Both Le Monde and France Observateur listed Mitterrand as among the possible candidates for the prime ministership, and l’Express, on June 7 1957, wrote that he was not merely a possible but the best candidate for the post. Édouard Bonnefous remembered Mitterrand’s ‘great disappointment’ at being passed over.
21. The sticking point was apparently Bourgès’s insistence on retaining Robert Lacoste as governor.
22. Bidault abandoned his attempt to form a government on April 22. Mitterrand’s meeting with Coty must therefore have taken place on April 23. The President approached Pleven later the same day. In subsequent accounts, Mitterrand conflated their discussion with a second exchange at the end of May, after it was already clear that Coty would name de Gaulle.
23. Mitterrand wrote: ‘The accusations being made against me find an echo at the Elysée . . . [Pleven] has been called to help resolve the crisis, while I myself am marked with suspicion.’
24. Coty vouchsafed this information to Roger Duchet, the Secretary-General of the CNIP, the main right-wing party, to which the President also belonged. Duchet, although hostile to Mitterrand, speculated in his memoirs that, had Mitterrand been appointed, he ‘would no doubt have named a Cabinet of a new style’ and the Fourth Republic might have evolved differently.
25. Lacouture, Jean, Mitterrand: une histoire de Français, Vol. 1, Seuil, 1998, p. 19
3. The meeting took place on the morning of May 31. See also Le Quotidien de Paris, October 26 1977 (reprinted in Mitterrand, François, Politique, Vol. 2, Fayard, 1981, p. 9), where Mitterrand alluded to what appears to have been another, unpublicised meeting with the President, on or around May 10, at which, he claimed, Coty had again raised the possibility of his forming a government. (According to Mitterrand, Coty said to him when they met on May 31: ‘I told you three weeks ago that I was going to designate you.’) That would be consistent with the President’s remarks to Roger Duchet. But no other source confirms a meeting in the second week of May and, speaking twenty years afterwards, Mitterrand may have confused the sequence of events.
26. Both Coty’s assistant, Francis de Baecque, and René Pleven took the view that if Coty did not call on Mitterrand to form a government, it was because the President doubted his fitness to be Prime Minister. Others blamed the influence of Coty’s Military Adviser, General Ganeval. Mitterrand himself, wrongly, accused Guy Mollet for blocking his nomination.
27. Not only was Felix Gaillard two years younger than Mitterrand, but following his fall, Coty had invited three other Radicals, René Billières – who had been a junior minister only once – Jean Berthoin and 36-year-old Maurice Faure to try to form a government. All had declined.
28. Mitterrand himself later recognised this. In his closing speech to the UDSR congress on February 1 1959, he accused the former President of bearing the primary responsibility for blocking change, leading the system to collapse. The ‘decadence’ of the Fourth Republic, he said, was ‘situated first and foremost at the pinnacle of the State’.