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CHAPTER THREE 1956—MOBILIZING AGAINSTMOLLET: THE RESTIVENESS OF THE PROTESTANT LEFT Early in January 1956, following elections to the National Assembly, the Faure government gave way to a coalition known as the National Front, led by a new prime minister, the Socialist Guy Mollet. A month into his mandate, on 6 February, a date full of ominous resonance for French leftists (because of the failed fascist putsch against the Third Republic on 6 February 1934), Mollet visited Algiers. There he was treated to a humiliating verbal as well as physical assault by a crowd of 50,000 angry colons, many of them belonging, ironically, to the same lower middle-class constituency which regularly supported the SFIO in France. This rage had a variety of sources: the recent success of the FLN in seizing part of the port city of Oran, the appointment by Mollet of the liberal General Georges Catroux to succeed Soustelle, and the premier's suggestion that new elections for a single college be held in Algeria and that "la personnalite algerienne" be recognized. The creation of a Comite de defense de I 'Algeriefrangaise by Soustelle after his term as governor-general and the rallying to this organization of a number of distinguished intellectuals should have forewarned Mollet of deepening divisions insideFrance,even withinnormally solid republican lines, over the government's Algerian policy. However, it was his reception at Algiers which forced the premierto decide whether to pursue or abandon the Soustelle line of conduct. Mollet opted for the first course, dismissing Catroux, but had great difficulty finding a replacement. The new appointment went in the end to the Socialist Robert Lacoste who was named resident general rather than governor-general. In announcing his choice Mollet declared that the government's aim was to create a "Franco-Moslem community" but, as it turned out, the prime minister ended up supporting whatever measures Lacoste adopted. The newly appointed resident minister, for his part, travelled to Algiers determined to be the "Clemenceau" of the Algerian war, the resolute civilian who would bring the enemy to his knees while keeping the army under control. Having named a tough-minded new administrator, Premier Mollet at the same time tried to keep open the possibility of a peaceful resolution of the Algerian conflict. On 28 February, the premier proposed a cease-fire, to be followed within three weeks by free elections to a bodywhich would negotiate Algeria's constitutional future. Although the FLN balked at this formula, 57 e 58 The Call of Conscience insisting on France's recognition of Algerian independence before any agreed upon cessation of hostilities, there were informal contacts between representatives of the premier and the FLN late in July in Belgrade and early in September in Rome. Unfortunately,these led nowhere. Another series of confidential contacts with the FLN which began at this time, and which were sanctioned by Mollet, involved Jean Carbonare, a Protestant engineer, and Ferhat Abbas.1 Carbonare was a graduate of one of France's most prestigious engineering schools whose political education as well as spiritualvocation had begunin 1943 as a sixteen-year-old in Besan9on. During a visit to the city's Hopital Saint-Jacques in 1943, he ran across some 300 Senegalese infantrymen who had been wounded fighting for France, then crowded together in the hospital's death-ward (mouroir), in effect an antechamber to the morgue. It was clear to the young Protestant that these African tirailleurs had been left to die by a country which was showing them neither gratitude nor compassion. Scandalized, Carbonare stood up atthe end of the next Sunday service in his church asking for 300 volunteers, "godmothers" (marraines), to tend to the needs of the stricken Senegalese. The spiritual shock which hehad experienced duringthat hospital visit helped transform the young Carbonare into a radical pacifist. After a brief detention in a German prison camp for illicit border-crossing, he returned to France in 1945 where he again ran into large numbers of Senegalese soldiers. This time they had been demobilized, given ribbons for service rendered and then told to fend for themselves ("Debrouillez-vousl" their officers had instructed them, peremptorily, as they were discharged). To help remedy this situation, Carbonare founded an Association d'accueil aux travailleurs immigres, the first of its kind in France. It was through this Association that the Protestant activist encountered Algerians from the Constantine area who were working in the Peugeot automobile plant near Besan9on. When the Algerian insurrection began on...

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