May 1958 Crisis - The Coup

The Coup

After his tour as governor general, Jacques Soustelle had returned to France to organize support for de Gaulle's return to power, while retaining close ties to the army and the settlers. By early 1958, he had organized a coup d'état, bringing together dissident army officers and colonial officials with sympathetic Gaullists. An army junta under General Jacques Massu seized power in Algiers on the night of 13 May. General Salan assumed leadership of a Committee of Public Safety formed to replace the civil authority and pressed the junta's demands that de Gaulle be named by French president René Coty to head a government of national union invested with extraordinary powers to prevent the "abandonment of Algeria." Salan announced on radio that the Army had “provisionally taken over responsibility for the destiny of French Algeria”. Under the pressure of Massu, Salan declared Vive de Gaulle ! from the balcony of the Algiers Government-General building on 15 May. De Gaulle answered two days later that he was ready to “assume the powers of the Republic”. Many worried as they saw this answer as support for the army.

At a 19 May press conference, de Gaulle asserted again that he was at the disposal of the country. As a journalist expressed the concerns of some who feared that he would violate civil liberties, de Gaulle retorted vehemently:

Have I ever done that? Quite the opposite, I have reestablished them when they had disappeared. Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator?

On 24 May, French paratroopers from the Algerian corps landed on Corsica, taking the French island in a bloodless action called "Operation Corse." Subsequently, preparations were made in Algeria for "Operation Resurrection," which had as objectives the seizure of Paris and the removal of the French government, through the use of paratroopers and armoured forces based at Rambouillet.

"Operation Resurrection" was to be implemented if one of three scenarios occurred: if de Gaulle was not approved as leader of France by Parliament, if de Gaulle asked for military assistance to take power, or if it seemed that communist forces were making any move to take power in France.

Political leaders on many sides agreed to support the General's return to power, except François Mitterrand, who was minister of Guy Mollet's Socialist government, Pierre Mendès-France (a Young Turk of the Radical-Socialist Party, former Prime Minister), Alain Savary (also a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO)), the Communist Party, etc. The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, famous existentialist author, was quoted as saying “I would rather vote for God.” Mendès-France and Savary, opposed to their respective parties' support to de Gaulle, would form together, in 1960, the Parti socialiste autonome (PSA, Socialist Autonomous Party), ancestor of the Parti socialiste unifié (PSU, Unified Socialist Party).