The Soldier of Koléa 1957–1959 97
strously silly’, declared that a Committee of Public Safety led by
Massu had been formed and taken over the destiny of Algeria.
There’s a lot of confusion about it all, no one is sure about the
names of the members, people keep getting added or taken
off. Salan’s out of it. Of course, we’re scared. The tone of the
news is terrifying. It hinted at the worst possible things, violent
racist attacks, the hunting down of ‘defeatists’, the invasion of
Tunisia, etc. We spent the whole night, sick with worry and
fear, calculating the chances of a coup d’état, imagining the
diff erent consequences it would have, for better and for worse.
We thought of the better consequences only in the abstract,
to reassure ourselves, dreaming of regrouping the forces of
the Left in France, a purge in Algeria, hasty negotiations, the
FLN softening its line when faced with a government that had
managed to resist, etc.Now that he had been brought to power by rioters, Massu sent
a telegram to Paris demanding the creation of a ‘government of
public safety, which alone could preserve Algeria as an integral part
of metropolitan France’. The deputies, who did not think much
of this intrusion, invested Pierre Pfl imlin in offi ce as planned. This
meant breaking off with Algiers. On 14 May, at 5 a.m., Massu issued
a new appeal: ‘The Committee for Public Safety implores General
de Gaulle to break his silence in view of the establishment of a
government of public safety that alone can save Algeria from being
abandoned.’
On reassuming his post at school, following those terrible
moments, Jackie regained some of his serenity – witness the rest of
his letter to Bianco:
The weather is very fi ne and, as on every morning in my life,
I can’t understand the anguish of night time when the sun is
shining. People are calm, the Left is regrouping, the socialist
deputies of Algeria will hold fi rm, the power of the ‘ultras’ will
suff er, and they will no longer terrorize the government and
the ministers of Algeria as they have done since 6 February.
Fascism will not pass. [.. .]
In the afternoons, I teach. During the second hour, I almost
passed out. I hadn’t been able to swallow a single morsel all day
long. I apologize for these grotesque details. But never had my
faith and my fear as a democrat seemed so very ‘gross’, and the
fascist danger so close, so concrete, so invasive. And all this at a
time when I am so alone, without friends, without any prospect
of getting away, a soldier in a land that’s ‘sealed off ’ and, as we
can now see, has never known democracy, has no tradition of