11RXNdQ

The Analysis of the Referendum* 69
people into uncertainty once more, and within the left it creates a division between the
‘yes’ and the ‘no’ votes. The danger threatening us is not, therefore, that de Gaulle might
go, but that he might stay.
A test of strength does not necessarily mean that blood will flow. It simply means that
at a certain moment people take stock of their numbers and see what they can do. The
Army is divided. The events in Algiers and Oran have certainly shaken a number of
officers, captains and majors, who had convinced themselves until then that they were
fighting against a band of rebels. When they saw the crowds of Muslims on the streets,
they said to themselves: ‘Ah well, we’ve got to begin all over again.’ They don’t find that
particularly amusing. They also sense that it is no longer the same war, that something is
lost, that it can no longer be a case of neatly cleaning up, by military operations, a
troubled country, but whose population would be favourably disposed towards them.
L’Express: Many give de Gaulle the credit for this awareness on the part of the
Army. They still think he is the only person capable of reducing the Army’s
resistance bit by bit by avoiding the test of strength you predict.
Jean-Paul Sartre: Is it de Gaulle or the five hundred dead of Algiers that have opened the
eyes of the military? It was not the SAS officers, as some maintained, who invited the
Muslims to take to the streets of the Casbah. They took to them of their own accord.
Nobody was expecting what happened. De Gaulle thought that a number of European
troublemakers in the cities would be contained, and that he could have a cosy little tour of
inspection of the Army. That’s not what happened at all.
The proof that he was more surprised than anyone is that he has never mentioned the
event, never drawn the lesson from it. Yet it was easy to say to the French: ‘You can see
that the Algerians need to express themselves. Rather than let them take to the streets, let
us give them the possibility to choose their destiny for themselves.’ He did not do it.
Why? Because it embarrasses him. Because the Algiers demonstrations prove that there
is no third force and that from now on his whole system will have to rely on the Army.
It is not de Gaulle’s policy that is tiring the Army, then. It is the reality. De Gaulle
contents himself with administering a bit of chloroform from time to time. That does the
troublemakers in the Army good because it allows them, by getting some compromises,
to stay in Algeria. But it does not show them the truth. The truth comes out, and will
continue to come out, despite de Gaulle.
If this test of strength seems inevitable to me, it is because we are not dealing with
children or madmen. There is talk about ‘troublemakers’ and ‘the pack’. It is not that at
all. It is about people who have precise interests to defend. The Army’s interest is
Algeria. Where would it be without it? An army of 1939, returning to barracks to wait to
be massacred, just like the civilian population, the day atomic war broke out.
What else would you expect them to do? They are soldiers only in Algeria. In France,
they are civilians like us, except that they have the right to carry a machine gun rather
like nobles had the right to wear a sword. They carry absolutely no weight in
international decisions. The three bombs we have detonated do not change anything.
They are not even very keen on the modernization of their Army because that would
mean the retirement of a number of officers who are very good at getting foot soldiers to