98 Jackie 1930–1962
it, off ers no centre of resistance to a dictatorship of colonists
supported by the army. [.. .]
I’m at a complete loss, can’t settle to anything, a second-class
soldier lost in an ocean of malevolent stupidity and I’d like to
be in Paris – even if it were occupied by fascists –, as a civilian,
with a few friends, and able to play even a modest role in some
resistance movement... What damn awful luck!^8Meanwhile, events were accelerating. On 15 May, General Salan,
who held both civil and military power, addressed the crowd assem-
bled in the Forum d’Alger, concluding his speech with the words:
‘Long live France! Long live French Algeria!’, and fi nally, ‘Long
live de Gaulle!’ General de Gaulle had been ejected from offi ce in
1947 and was still hoping to give France more stable institutions;
he now emerged from his reserve, and declared that he was ‘ready
to assume power in the Republic’. For several days, Algiers was the
scene of impressive demonstrations, ‘bringing together crowds of
every origin gathered under the unfurled French fl ag to demonstrate
to metropolitan France their unanimous desire to remain French’.^9
Jackie had decided not to send his letter to Lucien Bianco in case
it was opened, as were all those written by suspects and ‘those with
fi les on them’, a group to which he was convinced he belonged. A
few days later, he added a postscript to his voluminous letter before
giving it to his brother, who would post it in France. Under the
pressure of events, Jackie’s tone was more militant than it had ever
been: ‘We are here living in a world of absolute pre-fascism, totally
powerless, with our only hopes residing in some Popular Front or
in the better aspects of de Gaulle to sweep away the rottenness.
Fascism will not pass!’ On 28 May, indeed, a big antifascist march,
led by Pierre Mendès France, took place in Paris. ‘I’d love to have
been in the Place de la République yesterday evening,’ wrote Jackie.
On that day, René Coty, the French President, launched his own
solemn appeal ‘to the most illustrious of Frenchmen’. On 1 June,
General de Gaulle was invested in offi ce by the National Assembly,
with 329 votes to 224. He was granted full powers for six months,
with the task of establishing a new Constitution. On 4 June, in
Algiers, he gave a speech that cannot be summed up merely in the
famous and ambiguous words ‘I have understood your position’ [je
vous ai compris] to which it is often reduced.
I know what has been happening here. I can see what you have
been trying to do. I can see that the path you have opened up
in Algeria is the path of renewal and fraternity. I mean renewal
in every sense. But that is the point: you wished this renewal
to start at the beginning, in other words with our institutions,