Algeria
A Brigadier General in June 1955, Massu commanded the groupe parachutiste d'intervention and from 1956 the 10e Division parachutiste. (Grando and Valynseele). France sent Massu and his division to Algeria in response to a wave of armed attacks and terrorist bombings coordinated by Algerian FLN. (Codevilla and Seabury). Massu ultimately won the Battle of Algiers in 1957, during which French forces were able to identify and arrest the leadership of the FLN in Algiers through the successful application of coercive methods of interrogation and outright torture on members of subordinate cells. In July 1958, he was promoted to Général de division and took the head of the army corps of Algiers, as well as functions of prefect for the region of Algiers.
It was said of Massu that he willingly admitted to the use of torture on suspected members of the FLN. However, he insisted that he would never subject anyone to any treatment that he had not first tried out on himself.
The Algier crisis of 1958, began when the current government suggested that it would negotiate with the Algerian nationalists, bringing the instability and ineffectiveness of the Fourth Republic to a head. Right-wing elements in the French Army, led by General Massu seized power in Algiers and threatened to conduct an assault on Paris, involving paratroopers and armoured forces based at Rambouillet, unless Charles de Gaulle was placed in charge of the Republic. De Gaulle did so under the precondition that a new constitution would be introduced creating a powerful presidency in which a sole executive, the first of which was to be De Gaulle, ruled for seven-year periods. These changes were introduced and the Fifth Republic was born. In July 1958 he became général de division (3 stars).
On 14 January 1960, Massu gave an interview in which he declared:
| “ | The Army has the power. It did not show it yet, because the opportunity did not arise. But the Army will use its power in one precise occasion (...) it encourages settlers to constitute paramilitary organisations and provides them weapons. | ” |
Massu was immediately relieved of command and sent back to the mainland.
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