Download French Failure in Algeria: A Public Relations Disaster

French Failure in Algeria: A Public Relations
Disaster
By Stephen J. Fallon
Journal Article | Oct 30 2013 - 7:02pm
French Failure in Algeria: A Public Relations Disaster
Stephen J. Fallon
This paper will show that the French government’s weak commitment to maintaining the rule of law and
her tradition of civil liberties cost her public support when the war began to impose on Metropolitan
France. Similarly, poor conduct and hypocrisy lost her the conflict within the international arena as her
allies lost faith in her ability to win and grew increasingly embarrassed to be associated with her. France
was politically weak when war broke out in Algeria as domestically, little consensus could be found as to
the direction the Fourth Republic except for a common fear of communism. Unwanted attempts to reassert
authority failed in Indochina, Tunisia, and Morocco. Algeria held an exceptional place as the crown jewel
of the empire was legally part of France proper and governed similarly with three départments, although
90% of the population were non-European. The divisiveness of the Algeria campaign on French society
has been likened to that of the Dreyfus affair and had a similar effect as the Vietnam War had in the US a
decade later.[i] The reliance of French authorities on brutal methods to win an information war caused her
to lose the war on the home front, despite a clear victory on the battlefield. France failed to understand
that she was subject to moral scrutiny that was asymmetrical; condemned for every failure while her
enemy the Front Libération National (FLN) was seemingly beyond rebuke.[ii] In the wake of military
failures in Indochina and Suez, many in the military felt that Algeria was a desperate last chance for them
to prove their effectiveness
The war occurred in three distinct phases: initially France failed to understand who she was fighting and
why, secondly the government seized the initiative and began to impose loses on the enemy three years
after fighting began.[iii] By 1959, France had driven her adversary into the most remote areas where they
could only operate in small units, poorly armed bands thanks to the implementation of the quadrillage
system, local troops (harkis) and the full might of the French Army. Finally in 1962, France withdrew
from Algeria in ignominy with 25,000-30,000 military deaths and nothing to show for it. Few if any
writers doubt that France achieved near-total tactical victory, which begs the question: what went wrong
strategically? In order to understand this we must look at the most decisive battle of the war; the Battle of
Algiers.
In a very conventional manner, the FLN decided to focus on Algiers in 1956 and sought decisive battle.
Algiers’ position as the centre of French power in the country, with a large European population on whom
they could prey was not lost on the FLN who hoped to inflict a Dien Bien Phu style loss there. In the wake
of growing violence in Algiers, the French Minister-in-Residence Robert Lacoste requested additional
forces and the 10th Parachute Division were sent into to impose order in Algiers. Within three months the
10th had killed more than 200 rebels and arrested 1,800 others in Algiers alone. The tactical success of the
French army in Algeria continued from there, unfortunately the French army could not kill its way to true
success no matter how hard it tried. The colonial government’s legitimacy was shaken along Weberian
lines for its inability to protect its citizens from violence. While conducting operations in Algiers, the
French Army came to rely increasingly on Human Intelligence.[iv] Committing a major strategic blunder,
the French Army placed short term expediency ahead of the good will and support of the majority of
Algerian people by resorting to torture. Aside from torture, extrajudicial killings and illegal detentions
also occurred in the battle for Algiers, as many as 40% of adult Arab men (55,000) in the city were
detained in brutal circumstances during 1956.[v] Moran notes that somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000
Algerians died in custody and during interrogations while many others deemed ‘too important’ were held
indefinitely without trial.[vi] Due process was sacrificed for the sake of expediency during the war, as the
bar for arrest and interrogation was set very low with minimal suspicion needed for arrest as guilt was
assumed. Breaking curfew resulted in shootings on sight, while forty eight hour sentencing and action
limits were common during the war, leading to swift executions with little to no independent legal
oversight.[vii] To this day, debate continues as the extent to which illegal procedures were used and
whether they were they exceptional or systematic.
Generally, the consensus is that while torture was common, it was not part of a conscious system but
rather the by-product of a total lack of leadership. However, this idea has been shaken in the past few
years by the publication of the memoirs of Major Paul Aussarasses, who admitted in his 2000 book,
‘Service Spéciaux’ that his special interrogation unit (SAS), routinely tortured and killed prisoners. A
number of other French authors have conducted research that suggests the scale and planning that went
into its (torture) use is indicative of a more sinister nationwide plot, that deliberately left little trace on
paper.[viii] Relying heavily on oral commands and by using ‘parallel’ language, veiled or obscure lexicon
and jargon as well as polemics, the army maintained plausible deniability from events using code words
and Orwellian word games. Interrogation policy during the period reads very subjectively, guidelines
advised that arrogant or recalcitrant prisoners were to receive ‘special services’ such as that of Major Paul
Aussarasses. Péries shows that semantic name changes described the abuse in religious, medical or
paternal terms, so that prisoners were ‘converted’, ‘rebuked’ and ‘brought around’ but never ‘abused’.[ix]
At the time, the Wuillaume Report suggested that removing the veil of hypocrisy surrounding the use of
torture to be lifted and ‘approved techniques’ to be allowed, however this report was dismissed out of
hand by the government as Article 303 of the French penal code expressly forbid torture under penalty of
death and charade continued.[x] Horne notes that while a little roughing up on arrest or ‘passage à tabac’
was historically present in French policing methods; full-blown torture on the other hand had never been
prevalent as in fact the idea of it had become more morally abhorrent following Nazi abuses in occupied
France.[xi] Todorov poignantly notes in his interviews with veterans of this war who in cases seem well
aware that roughing up of prisoners had progressed to a level previously unknown among French troops‘if one day there’s another Nuremburg trial, we’ll all be convicted: every day there was another Oradour
(sur-Glen); and this time we were committing them‘.[xii] Rarely did Army and Police officers speak out
against practices, as those that did were silenced and imprisoned as was the case with Tietgen and
Bollardiere, the two most senior officials who tried to raise the alarm.[xiii] The ‘strategic message’
conveyed by the use of torture was at odds with the stated reason for being there, how could the rule of
law and the status quo be maintained if the government and its agents were prepared to employ extra-legal
methods and have no limits?[xiv] The uniqueness of the situation, a police action that the French had no
theoretical reference to build upon was touted as a justification for torture, as was the viciousness of the
foe who led many to believe this war was just ‘different’. The results of torture were a loss of moral
authority by the very nation that had placed itself on the pedestal of western thought as the home of
liberty, self-determination and anti-despotism. The advantages of intelligence gained by torture were
totally negated by the plethora of strategic dangers arising from the methods used, including military and
political cohesion, moral superiority, and national legitimacy.
France’s brutality, atrocities and repression of Algerians’ rights were debated and attacked in public, her
behaviour was in stark contrast to her own projection of France as the epitome of western civilisation and
champion of the ‘rights of man’. Internationally, France was not warmly received by its allies in the US
or the UK who did not agree with the way things were being handled and feared being tarred with same
abusive colonial brush.[xv] Within the unaligned Third World and in the UN, France also faced growing
condemnation; the war was often raised by the FLN’s government-in-exile as well as by sympathetic third
parties. The Algerian Independence movement contested France principally in two foreign domains; the
United States and the United Nations. Matthew Connelly’s work on the internationalisation of the conflict
provides phenomenal insight into the media and public relations efforts engaged in by both sides, for this
was a world war of opinion.[xvi] French economic woes at home compelled her to listen to international
concerns from the IMF and US. During the war France stationed a sizable force of delegates in New York
and Washington in an effort to court US domestic opinion. Considerable sums of money were spent
wooing the US public, with as many as 60 million Americans seeing pro-French propaganda movies in
January 1955 alone.[xvii] These movies stressed that only France had the solution to the Algerian problem.
[xviii] France called in a variety of favours to stem the tide of bad publicity in the US as Jacob Kaplan,
Grand Rabbi of France persuaded New York Times Senior Editors to stick to the French line when
covering UN debates.[xix]
The FLN were slower to begin acting on this international stage, but when they did it was pivotal. While
the French government’s outspent the FLN ten times over on publicity, the FLN were savvier and used
their limited resources to much greater effect.[xx] With a small team of personable, western educated
English speakers, the independence movement put the best foot forward on television, radio and
newspaper interviews. Requests from the FLN to debate French officials in front of an American
audience were refused as they did not want to give them the dignity of recognition; however France
appeared ‘maladroit, constrained and defensive’ as a result.[xxi] From mid-1958, the FLN’s official
mouthpiece ‘El Moudjahid’ (The Jihadist) dedicated an even 50% of its paper to the International context
of the war as each year the UN vote showed growing support for the Algerian Independence movement.
[xxii] When the Algerian Provisional Government (GPRA) formed in September 1958, eighteen countries
recognised it within ten days. The GPRA was aware that the US watched events unfolding in Algeria with
interest and periodically over-stated communist interest in the war, urging the US to bring France to the
negotiation table before radical, disparate elements of the GPRA could follow through on invitations to
allow Communist Chinese volunteers to fight in Algeria.[xxiii] Support for the GPRA grew quickly much
to the fury of the French, when in December 1958 the US abstained from voting on the Algerian issue at
the UN in a further sign that France was losing this war abroad. Reports from the time show the US
increasingly trying to hedge its bets, with the CIA indirectly funnelling funds to the FLN by way of
sympathetic Trade Unions in France.[xxiv] France grew increasingly concerned by the behaviour of her
Anglo-Saxon ‘allies’, who she suspected of working against her in the hope of being allowed privileged
access rights to newly discovered oil in the Sahara upon independence.[xxv] French annoyance at this
deteriorating international situation is highlighted by two strange paradoxes; firstly while the overall
situation in Algeria improved her position in the UN steadily weakened, secondly tactical successes of
increased killed and captured FLN fighters hurt her image abroad serving as poor publicity.[xxvi]
After the Battle of Algiers, French society’s moral indifference to the war ended as the war’s centre of
gravity shifted from Algeria to Metropolitan France. The public outcry in France against the war was slow
coming, but when it came it was decisive. The increasing reliance on conscripts and reservists from 1957
onwards prevented the French government from keeping the public’s attention away from the issue and
leaving the fight only to elite units.[xxvii] As reports of atrocities and crimes came to light within the
press and in memoirs, the war changed from an abstract issue (anti-colonialism) to a more concrete issue
of revulsion at French brutality in wider public discourse.[xxviii] As the government lost this public
relations battle, steps were taken to silence the press and punish anyone that criticised the government
with McCarthy style black-lists as occurred to those who dared support the ‘Manifesto of the 121’ in 1960.
[xxix] For the French government and army, still haunted by the spectre of 1940 and a succession of postwar defeats, this war was a messy, thankless task and internal criticism was not taken kindly.[xxx]
Attempts to ban works by writers such as Henri Alleg and his harrowing memoirs of torture were poorly
thought through, drawing international condemnation for censorship.[xxxi] There was an overarching
theme in French behaviour during this war of incompetent, mismanaged situations, where basic principles
that France had upheld for generations were ignored and broken for the sake of expediency.
John Talbott’s work measures the metrics of public perception of the war in a most illuminating manner.
His unique research in the archives of the Insitute Français d’opinion publique (France’s answer to
Gallup) shows that French sympathies for the war were slow to emerge, however the war was one of three
issues alongside the economy, and de Gaulle during this period. A mere 37-38% of those polled in the
spring of 1956 (before the Battle of Algiers) stated that they ‘have confidence in government’s handling of
war’ dropping further to 25% in September 1957.[xxxii] Other figures from mid-1956 show a glaring
lack of faith in the Fourth Republic and hope in efforts to stabilise Algeria. Talbott shows that 40% ‘blame
the government for the issue’ and 45% were ‘opposed to the use of available conscripts to fix the issue’.
[xxxiii] While oil discoveries in the Sahara and de Gaulle’s return temporarily increased mainland
confidence, the necessary base of good will and faith in the government was lacking in France even before
revelations of torture and abuse began to dominate headlines. Little solidarity was felt for Algeria on the
French home front, 49% those polled in May 1959 reported ‘little to somewhat solidarity’ while about
16% felt ‘no sense of solidarity’ (my emphasis) with Algeria.[xxxiv] Public interest in the issue grew as
the war progressed, but hopes of a remedy slipped away as those favouring a truce with the FLN grew in
number from 53% in July 1957 to an inadmissible 78% in April 1961.[xxxv] Talbott concludes that the
army did not have support throughout the war, merely a free hand as the mainland was more a spectator
than a participant.[xxxvi]
No solid consensus is apparent among French writer as the issue was too divisive; there were no Kiplings
for this war as it was too dirty to glorify.[xxxvii] Indeed as with the case of Albert Camus, who despite
vested interests in France winning this war, decided in 1958 to no longer discuss this issue publically as he
felt it would only ‘harden contending camps and divide France further’.[xxxviii] Dine’s review of the
literature of this war shows that the Algerian conflict was a watershed in the evolution of public and media
attitudes to war, ‘une guerre d’opinion’ in which the use of torture came home to mainland France.
Following a short delay harrowing tales of abuse and murder were told by ‘recalcitrant appelés’ who did
not side with the officer class’ self-imposed burden of Guerre Révolutionnaire .[xxxix] For many officers,
the dirty work of torture was an ignominy to be borne on behalf of ‘la patrie’; refusal to torture was
considered a failure of character that would be paid for with the blood of innocents.[xl] English language
literature at the time is largely in favour of independence, Brett shows that British writers in particular
called on France ‘to do the right thing’ as she was historically, politically and morally in the wrong.[xli]
Ultimately France left Algeria for strategic and political reasons, not economic ones. This paper has
shown the clear presence of torture on an unofficially endemic scale; while the ramifications of it
domestically and internationally have been analysed. The war did not place any serious financial strain on
the French economy; furthermore while costs were initially high, they continued to diminish as the war
progressed.[xlii] The use of torture destroyed the link between the army and the nation, utterly nullifying
the myth of the colony warmly receiving ‘civilisation’.[xliii] The French government sunk to the same
levels as the FLN in terms of inhumanity and barbarity, losing the public relations battle for itself. With
no strategic victory in sight in the early 1960s, the people of France decided that they were not prepared to
continue fighting this war for tactical successes at the expense of their country’s democratic way of life
and continued bad press abroad, finally withdrawing from North Africa in 1962 after 130 years.
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End Notes
[i] Pierre (2009), p. v.
[ii] Rogers (2004), p. 16.
[iii] Ibid, p. 12
[iv] Di Marco (2006), p. 71.
[v] Ibid, p. 72.
[vi] Moran (2008), p. 4.
[vii] Cradock & Smith (2007), p. 92.
[viii] Thenault & Branche (2000), pp. 57-58.
[ix] Péries (1997), pp. 52-54.
[x] Horne (1977), p. 196.
[xi] Ibid., p. 196.
[xii] Todorov (2007), p. 22.
[xiii] Ibid., p. 25.
[xiv] Moran (2008), p. 5.
[xv] Keiger & Alexander (2010), p. 21.
[xvi] Connelly (2001), p. 224.
[xvii] Connelly (2002), p. 128.
[xviii] Ibid., p. 128.
[xix] Ibid., p. 127.
[xx] Connelly (2001), p. 229.
[xxi] Horne, p. 246.
[xxii] Connelly (2002), p. 135.
[xxiii] Connelly (2001), pp. 221-222.
[xxiv] Connelly (2001), p. 228.
[xxv] Horne (1997), p. 243.
[xxvi] Connelly (2002), p. 136.
[xxvii] Rogers (2004), p. 15.
[xxviii] Merom (2004), p. 612. Servan-Schrieber’s ‘Lieutenant in Algeria’/ Alleg’s ‘La Question’ (1958)
[xxix] Ibid., p. 614.
[xxx] Obuchowski (1968), p. 2.
[xxxi] Ibid., p.101.
[xxxii] Talbott (1975), p. 356.
[xxxiii] Ibid., p. 356.
[xxxiv] Ibid., p. 358.
[xxxv] Ibid., p. 361.
[xxxvi] Ibid., p.361.
[xxxvii] Obuchowski 1968), p. 103.
[xxxviii] Ibid., p. 96.
[xxxix] Dine (1990), p. 12.
[xl] Ibid., p. 240.
[xli] Brett (1994), p. 219.
[xlii] Ibid., p. 97.
[xliii] Péries (1997), p. 41.
About the Author
Stephen J. Fallon
Stephen J. Fallon is a MA Candidate, War in the Modern World, King's
College London.
Available online at : http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/french-failure-in-algeria-a-publicrelations-disaster
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{2} http://archive.org/stream/anessayoncrimes00ingrgoog#page/n4/mode/2up
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