After seven and a half years of bloody struggles in which the Algerian nation fought for its independence, French President Charles de Gaulle announced on February 5, 1962: “Algeria will be a sovereign and independent state.” Parts of the army fighting in Algeria are enforced. She is not prepared to capitulate again after her defeat in Indochina in 1954. Even before the negotiations with the provisional government of Algeria, which began in Evian in May 1961, generals such as Maurice Challe, Edmond Jouhaud, André Zeller and Raoul Salan conspired to stage a coup against the president. Even if a coup d’état fails, de Gaulle has by no means fully regained command of his armed forces.
It is not only in Algeria that the Armée Secrète (OAS) organization is now massacring groups and individuals striving for independence on its own initiative. The colonial conflict also grips the mother country, where increasingly powerful demonstrations for renunciation of escalating violence take place. On September 8, 1961, de Gaulle narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. On October 17, police in Paris put down a peaceful demonstration of around 30,000 Algerians protesting a curfew imposed on them. There are an incredible 200 dead. After an attack on Minister of Culture André Malraux, Paris witnessed a demonstration against the OAS on February 8, 1962, in which eight people were killed by the police.
Mass exodus of the pied-noirs
In February 1961 alone, the OAS executed 553 people in Algeria and France. Between March 4th and 5th they staged “Operation Rock ‘n’ Roll” with 120 bomb attacks. Despite – or because of – this enormous pressure, negotiations are successful in Evian and a ceasefire is announced on March 19. The Algerian negotiators also include those leaders of the National Liberation Front (FLN) who were arrested on October 22, 1956 after a plane was hijacked by army special forces, including two future presidents, Ben Bella and Muhammad Boudiaf, and Hocine Aït Ahmed, who soon became becomes the leader of the Berber movement, and the intellectual Mostefa Lacheraf, later a minister of education, distinguished by a progressive language policy.
The Treaty of Evian stipulates the gradual withdrawal of the French army, but secures it the right to use the Mers el Kebir military base for another 15 years and – today hardly understandable – to be allowed to continue nuclear weapons tests in the Sahara. One million French Algerians will also receive guarantees about their right to stay, their property, and cultural and political rights. A referendum on independence is due to take place within the next few months.
The OAS has no intention of bowing to these decisions. It is now pursuing a scorched-earth tactic and not only carries out attacks against Algerians, but also drives more and more civilian Algerian French – the pieds-noirs – to resist the state power. Now there are also bloody clashes with the police during their mass demonstrations. The unleashed violence puts the pieds-noirs, who have been insecure for years, in a final panic, resulting in a spontaneous mass flight to the motherland.
The FLN also does not control the Muslim population, which is turning against a group whose protection has been forgotten in Evian. It is about 260,000 Muslims who cooperated with the colonial power, including in particular the 200,000-strong auxiliary corps, which often joined the French army out of social hardship. The “Harkis” have been used for the dirtiest side of the conflict: widespread torture. Tens of thousands are said to have died in the pogroms against them in the early 1960s. About the same number ended up illegally in France, where they had to fight for decades to gain recognition as emigrants. The months between the armistice and Algeria’s independence, proclaimed on July 5, 1962, became the bloodiest months of decolonization. The fact that 99.7 percent of the votes in the referendum on sovereignty were in the affirmative on July 1 (participation: 91.9 percent) is due to the fact that almost the entire European population left Algeria.
Fierce diadoche fights also broke out within the civil and military leadership of the FLN. They only level off when Houari Boumedienne, a later head of state (1965 – 1978), moves from Tunisia to Algiers with Soviet tanks. Of course, the completely unknown Colonel cannot yet dare to seize power directly and leaves it to the charismatic Ben Bella for the time being.