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CHAPTER FOUR 1957—FULLY ENGAGED: PROTESTANTS TAKE SIDES IN THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS At the beginning of 1957, the Protestant commentator Paul Adeline scolded Premier Mollet for a series of blunders which had made the search for peace harder to undertake: the premier had capitulated to the mob on 6 February 1956; he had thrown away a chance to accept Moroccan and Tunisian mediation in the conflict and a third opportunity to begin negotiations had been lost following the arrest and abduction of the five FLN leaders. What was needed now was a courageous effort to rise above the immediate political crisis and reach for the kind of sublime understanding that had occurred between Christians and Muslims during the reign of Saladin at the time of the crusades or, more recently, the proconsular career of Marshal Louis Hubert Lyautey in Morocco early in the twentieth century. The Ultra threat, meanwhile, had in Adeline's view been greatly exaggerated. There were perhaps 200, at most 300, right-wing extremists involved, most of whom were wretched souls, too ignorant to be feared or respected. Mollet could deal with this riff-raff by sending them off to some remote part of the Algerian countryside and then begin serious negotiations with the various groups of nationalists who would thereby be forced to clarify their long-term aims.1 Andre Philip relayed his deep concern about the direction the SFIO was taking over Algeria in a passionate declaration before the party's Comite directeur in January 1957. Motions coming up from the base through regular conventions and transmitted to Socialist administrators such as Lacoste had been regularly disavowed or subverted, the ex-deputy charged. The party had thereby not only betrayed its own teachings; it was in the process of undermining republican institutions and alienating public opinion. In a series of devastating phrases, the Protestant Socialist summed up his indictment: Right-wing policy made by men who say they are on the Left will lead to the disappearance of any effective publicopinionthroughout the country. The Right is currently silent because its ideas inspire those in power; whilethe Left has no comment precisely because its leaders are in charge. To the suggestion made by some comrades that he was simply undergoing a personal crisis of conscience, Philip replied that he had joined 81 82 The Call of Conscience the SFIO thirty-five years earlier because of the ideals to which he remained faithful. In the present circumstances, his Protestant heritage left him no choice but to join the minority in denouncing the party's policy in Algeria: "More than 300 years ago, my Cevenol ancestors, in spite of the king's dragoons, defended the principle of free criticism against all forms of clericalism and cesaropapism. You will forgive me if, today, I remain faithful to their memory."2 Philip's salvo against Mollet and the party leadership during and after the January meeting of the Comite directeur of the SFIO was matched by the creation of a Comite Socialiste d'Etude et d'Action pour la Paix en Algerie (CSEAPA) that same month. Among the militants who brought their energy and intellect to the first general rally called by this fledgling organization on 29 January were the young Protestant Michel Rocard and the veteran leftist C.-A. Julien. The aims of the CSEAPA were those which Philip had already made his own in the inner councils of the SFIO: to work for a peaceful resolution of the Algerian crisis which would satisfy the aspirations of the Muslim masses while guaranteeing the basic rights of the European minority and to rehabilitate the party. While Adeline urged a shift in government policy and a determined minority of Socialists was fighting both inside and outside the party for a change of course, the Socialist resident minister Robert Lacoste was moving in the opposite direction. Confronted by a shift in FLN tactics from rural to urban warfare, including a determined effort to shut down Muslim schools through a boycott, Lacoste committed the defense of Algiers to the parachute general Jacques Massu, whose reputation had been enhanced during the aborted Suez expedition. What followed was the "Battle of Algiers" which began early in 1954 and which by October had effectively restored French military control in the territory's capital. To help achieve the effective restoration of French civil as well as military control in Algiers, Massu made the liberal Catholic Paul Teitgen his deputy for police matters. As the city was...

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