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Colonialism and Neocolonialism 30
responsible were not so foolish as to limit the operation simply to damage to property.
For Sakhiet, too, the time of the operation had been precisely chosen: it was market time.
Yveton clearly had no other aim than to plunge the town into darkness. The aim of our
planes was to plunge a village into death. If we had wished to maintain our archangel-like
severity, we should, perhaps, have sought out the guilty parties and – who knows? –
brought them to trial. But no: Monsieur Gaillard ‘covered up’! With what thick veil or
impenetrable mist he hoped to cover up the ruins of Sakhiet I do not know. But the
operation was not a success: the stones smoking in the sun were seen by the whole world.
Only Monsieur Gaillard is us, is France. When, from his platform, he most officially
made the august gesture of the man covering up, he implicated us all. Our foreign friends
– as their press takes pleasure in explaining to us each day – are beginning to ask
themselves very seriously if we have not become rabid dogs. And here is the question
that we could humbly put to the highest-ranking official of our great Republic: is it really
a good moment to execute the Guerroudjs? Would it not be in our interest to ease up a
little on our arrogant severity? Is a country whose government proudly accepts
responsibility for what Monsieur Mauriac, the other day, so aptly called a massacre of the
poor, really qualified to allow its representatives to impose the death penalty, in its name,
on a man who had no role other than to liaise between groups of communist origin and
the FLN, or on a woman who, in taking part in a sabotage operation, took all necessary
precautions to ensure that there would be no casualties? It must be repeated every day to
the imbeciles who wish to terrify the world by showing it the ‘terrible face of France’:
France terrifies nobody, she does not even have the means to intimidate any more; she is
beginning to disgust, that is all. In the execution of the Guerroudj couple, if it were ever
to take place, nobody would see or admire our archangel-like inflexibility; they would
simply think that we have committed yet another crime.