Towards Independence 1960–1962 115
Critique of Pure Reason. But he was always available for those
who showed real passion for the subject. Sometimes, he’d take
us to the ‘Balzar’ to continue the discussions over a drink.
Listening to students, being approachable, were highly unusual
in the university in those days.^7Meanwhile, the Algerian situation was developing rapidly. It was
increasingly the main topic of conversations at the Sorbonne and
elsewhere. In Derrida’s family as in that of most pieds-noirs, resent-
ment against de Gaulle continued to rise. In the referendum on
self-determination held on 8 January 1961, the ‘yes’ vote massively
outnumbered the ‘no’ vote, with 75 per cent in metropolitan France
and 70 per cent in Algeria: for the fi rst time, Muslims had an oppor-
tunity to vote. On 7 April, the Evian negotiations began, opening
up the way to independence. Some people refused to accept it. On
the night of 21–2 April, four generals – Challe, Jouhaud, Zeller,
and Salan – tried to rouse the soldiers and pieds-noirs to revolt, in
an attempt to keep Algeria as part of the French Republic. In just
a few hours, they managed to seize control of Algiers. On Sunday,
23 April, in a televised speech that became famous, de Gaulle
denounced ‘the attempt made by a bunch of retired generals’, order-
ing that every means be put into action to block them. The putsch
failed, but the OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète) continued, in an
increasingly bloody manner, to fi ght for Algeria to remain French.
It was at about the same time that Pierre Nora, one of Jackie’s old
fellow pupils at Louis-le-Grand, brought out a book on The French
of Algeria, published by Julliard. Shortly after receiving this volume,
Derrida replied to Nora in a letter of nineteen typewritten pages,
single-spaced – a letter that I will quote from extensively, as it seems
to me so illuminating. It sets out his convictions on the Algerian
situation in a way he had never expressed them before and would
never do again. In this detailed analysis, he also showed ethical and
political preoccupations that his publications would not reveal until
many years later.
Derrida says that he had read the work with unremitting and
enthusiastic interest, during days that were in his view dismay-
ing and, so to speak, unreal. He thanks Nora for having written a
book with ‘the merit, rare and diffi cult, on this subject [.. .] of being
almost constantly just [juste] in the double meaning of the word,* in
its content and its conclusions’. This did not stop him from deplor-
ing its tone, ‘which, in general, reveals – more than what is actually
said – the fundamental attitude of the person writing’. The work
often struck him as ‘rather harsh in its aggression’, and even imbued
- I.e. both correct and fair. – Tr.