Torture During The Algerian War - The Controversy During The War

The Controversy During The War

The systematic use of torture created a national controversy which has had lasting effects on French and Algerian society. As early as 2 November 1954, Catholic writer François Mauriac called against the use of torture in L'Express in an article titled Surtout, ne pas torturer ("Above all, do not torture.").

Two important officials, one civilian and another military, resigned because of the use of torture. The first was Paul Teitgen, former General Secretary of the Algiers Police, who had been himself tortured by the Gestapo. He resigned on 12 September 1957, in protest against the massive use of torture and extrajudicial killings ordered by generals Bigeard and Massu. Under pressure from the left-wing opposition to the war and the use of torture, including the anti-colonialist French Communist Party (PCF), the government, then led by Guy Mollet (SFIO), created a Commission of Safeguard of Rights and Individual Liberties, composed of various personalities named by the government, which gave the public its report in September 1957: according to it, torture was a frequent practice in Algeria. The other was General de Bollardière, who was the only army official to denounce the use of torture. He was put in charge of military arrests and then had to resign.

Torture was denounced during the war by many French left-wing intellectuals, members or not of the PCF, which maintained an anti-colonialist line. Confronted by the left-wing opposition, prime minister Guy Mollet, general secretary of the SFIO from 1946 to 1969, ordered in April 1957 a "Commission de sauvegarde des droits et des libertés individuels" (Commission for the protection of rights and individual freedoms), composed of personalities named by the government, to investigate the issue. However, the main aim was in fact to absolve the French army of accusations and to gain time (Raphaëlle Branche, 2004).

Henri Alleg, director of the Alger Républicain newspaper and of the Algerian Communist Party (PCA), who himself had been tortured, denounced it in La Question (Minuit, 1958). Along with La Gangrène, by Bachir Boumaza, and Italian Communist Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 film on The Battle of Algiers, Alleg's book was immediately censored in France. Torture was also evoked during the trial of ALN activist Djamila Boupacha, defended by lawyer Gisèle Halimi. A 1977 film by Laurent Heynemann adapted the book, and also treated of the Maurice Audin affair. Writer Albert Camus, a pied-noir and famous existentialist, tried unsuccessfully to persuade both sides to at least leave civilians alone, writing editorials against the use of torture in Combat newspaper. Other famous opponents of torture included Robert Bonnaud, who published on counsel of his friend Pierre Vidal-Naquet an article in 1956 in L'Esprit, a personalist review founded by Emmanuel Mounier (1905–1950). Bonnaud was later imprisoned, in June 1961, on a charge of support to the FLN. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, one of the many signatories to the Manifeste des 121 against torture, wrote a book, L'Affaire Audin (1957), and, as a historian, would continue to work on the Algerian War all his life. Beside Vidal-Naquet, famous signatories of the Manifeste des 121, published after the 1960 Barricades Week, included Robert Antelme, an Auschwitz survivor and writer, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Boulez, André Breton, Hubert Damisch, Marguerite Duras, Daniel Guérin, Robert Jaulin, Claude Lanzmann, Robert Lapoujade, Henri Lefebvre, Michel Leiris, Jérôme Lindon, editor of the Minuit edition house, François Maspero, another editor, Théodore Monod, Maurice Nadeau, Jean-François Revel, Alain Robbe-Grillet, founder of the nouveau roman, Françoise Sagan, Nathalie Sarraute, Jean-Paul Sartre, Claude Simon, Jean Bruller (Vercors), Jean-Pierre Vernant, etc.

According to Henri Alleg, "in reality, the base of the problem was this unjust war itself. From the moment one starts a colonial war, i.e. a war to submit a people to one's will, one can issue all the laws one wants, but they will always be violated."