The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

dismantling of the ZAA organization in September, and above all the ghastly purges conducted in the
Wilayas after the Battle had been the result not of tortured information, but of human intelligence and
cooptation. The tracking down of Yacef's bombers at the stadiums had been accomplished through
empirical police-work (tracking the coat to its owner). The severe reduction in mobility that the FLN
faced during the battle had been the result of the quadrillage system. In this list of successes – jointly
crucial to the French tactical (if not strategic) victory against the FLN – torture by the DOP simply does
not seem to have a role to play. And yet torture did occur. Did these successes ultimately rely on
torture? If so, was that role contingent on torture's ability to gain information, or would other negative
sanctions have worked as well? What can we say about the likely benefits of torture compared to the
known costs, such as the alienation of the Muslim population from France and the political controversy
that unfurled in the Metropole? Before we examine the effects of the use of torture on French public
opinion, let us consider the scale of the matter, and what crucial intelligence was found through it.
Torture, far from being reserved for 'ticking bombs' and high-level operatives, became
incredibly widespread – as the Battle progressed the Forces of Order began to consider every non-
European a potential traitor. Neither was it new: torture had been used as part of the effort to break up
the OS in 1949-50, and the French presence in Algeria had relied since the 1830 invasion on methods
of terror against the Muslim population, torture among them. (Heggoy, p. 34; Welch, 2003) According
to statistics taken from Paul Teitgen, and reported by Branche (2001, p. 121-22), arrêtés d'assignation
(orders for detention that exempted the military from the normal requirements of the judicial process,
and which were the 'legal' prelude to torture for information) had surged from an average of 100 per
month from about April to December 1956 to 700 a month from January through March 1957 (the
initial Battle dominated by the actions of Aussaresses' exploitation group, whose success against the
FLN would be incomplete and short-lived). The creation of the DPU in March, and its massive
intelligence apparatus, would paradoxically see a further increase to 4,000 a month. By the time of his
final resignation, Teitgen would have signed over 24,000 such instruments. Of those subject to
detention, 80% of the male prisoners, and 66% of the females would undergo torture: leading to an
estimated number of tortured ranging from 16,000 to 19,200 primarily from March to September.
(ibid., p. 125, 144) 87 Even Gen. Massu acknowledged in the late 1990s that 'interrogation by use of
87 It should be noted that these figures are taken indirectly, through Rejali (2009): as of this point, I have not been able to
get a copy of Branche (2001). However, there is little reason to doubt their authenticity – the number of 24,000 arrested
is repeated throughout the literature, and is comes from the Algiers prefecture, headed by Teitgen. That a large
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