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Do you often talk about your experience in the Algerian War?

Very seldom.

With my kids sometimes.

But to them, I mean...

thirty years back is like the First World War. So no, not really.

Not very. When I see old friends again...

Otherwise, no.

I discovered a week ago, looking for old pictures,

looking for documents,

that my thirty-year-old son and I have never talked about the Algerian War.

My children sometimes ask questions about it.

It is true that I barely mention it much.

And I think this film is an opportunity to...

talk about it with them as well.

Talking about it is...

like my colleague said, it is painful,

because we experienced it, and also no one wants to listen to that.

Why tell

your pals, your family, what you experienced over there?

It's always sad. You cast bad memories aside.

I went through a long period of amnesia,

where I didn't want to think about the Algerian War.

Under the burning sun of Algeria

Our flag floated calm and victorious

In response to the motherland's call

He goes there to face the harshness

Go! Raise to the Crimean winds

Your old flag alas no longer victorious

Stained with the blood Of the invaded Austria

And proudly wear the Cross of honor

Hurray, hurray! Soldiers march on

The canon rings and the bugle sings

Hurray, hurray! Soldiers march on

Always follow the third regiment

Barn, barn! Take cover The jackals are here

The jackals, these warriors Who never leave you bare feet

November 1st, 1954, I was in the Algerian territory of Khenchela.

We were spending the night in small barracks right outside town.

We were leaving the next day. And at 1 a.m., we were attacked.

Our watchman, the one who was on watch duty,

posted out front, was injured. Seriously.

We carried him to Batna hospital during the night,

in a truck, a GMC,

and he died two days later. His name was Marquet.

- He was the Algerian War's first casualty. - He was among the first ones.

There was another battery at Batna, the BCS,

Command and Services Battery,

which was attacked at around the same time and...

Not the watchman, but the post brigadier came out to check

what was happening at 1 a.m., there were gunshots,

and he was fatally wounded. His name was Cocher.

- Did you know them? - I'd known them a little in Germany.

Before they attacked,

the blew the transformer outside.

And we were in places we didn't know,

in the dark...

We stood around... There were walls all around,

so those who were at the gate, they were okay.

Those who were behind the wall,

we tried to do something, but we couldn't see anything.

I was shooting, I had a rifle.

We shot over the wall, but it didn't go anywhere, we couldn't retaliate.

But they threw us boxes, with pieces of cloth,

like Molotov cocktails.

It fell down and went up in flames.

All our trucks

were lined up by that wall. And we had a fuel tank, one truck had 800 liters

because we drove around. We tried to move them

away from the wall, so they couldn't get hit.

The next day there was some retaliation.

- Meaning? - We arrested suspects.

It was bad,

the guys had a hard time accepting the couple of casualties.

- How did you feel about these deaths? - I was like them.

I... You can't...

We were hurting and...

we didn't really understand why.

As young draftees, we didn't really know why they shot at us.

People said "Algeria," "France," it was confusing.

You were absolutely not aware that a seven-year war was starting.

Not at all. I thought it would last one year, tops.

What even surprised me I have a brother who's

six years younger than I am, that went there.

Then again, I'd never thought

that war would last eight years.

This eight-year war, those who fought it will talk about it.

Like Pierre Pessenti,

all the witnesses we talked to were drafted or re-drafted,

and served in Algeria between 1954 and 1962.

Soldiers, with or without rank.

"Blokes," as they called them then.

Millions of young Frenchmen,

millions of stories that made history.

They had never spoken,

and nobody bothered listening anyway.

They were twenty,

sometimes older, when they had a deferment.

They were simple soldiers or officers.

They fought in the Aurès and by Constantine,

in Kabylia and on the border. They wore the bush hat,

the paratrooper beret, or the commando cap.

They retained perfect memories of that time,

Incredibly vivid and accurate.

They also often kept, as one does, pious relics, souvenirs,

letters, pictures,

the only documents you will see.

Just like we excluded politicians, career officers and officials,

instead of archives, we chose to use

photographs taken on site by our witnesses.

All these former draftees or re-draftees share another trait.

Like Pierre Pessenti, they are all from the Grenoble area.

Thirty years later, we found them in the city

where they still live.

And we chose Grenoble for a reason.

This is where, on May 18th, 1956,

one of the biggest protests against re-drafting took place.

Almost all our witnesses were involved, closely or from a distance,

whether they were for or against it.

Ezio Goy, for instance, by whom we just drove.

Did you participate in the protest's preparations?

We took part in the protest with other youth organizations.

Was there a slogan?

No... Not even that. It was just us. Personally, we went because

we had to do something to keep the guys home.

And we ended up over in the Aigle neighborhood,

Augereau Street and all that, and we faced the riot police.

There was some fighting.

- Did you fight? Did you throw rocks? - Yeah! They almost hit me with their guns.

I had pals who were drafted for a second tour.

We were young, eighteen, twenty,

but we were friends. Twenty-three, twenty-four.

Some of them were on the trains that were leaving.

We wanted to keep that from happening.

We thought, Algeria...

We didn't understand why they sent people back.

If you had interviewed the protesters then,

they were all completely convinced

that they were in the street

for a good cause, and that it was their idea.

But they were actually manipulated, they were brought to that point.

If mothers protested, cried,

because their sons were sent to war...

Okay-

The protest was carried out

by the mothers and the fiancées of the soldiers that were leaving.

Barricades were blocking the tracks to keep the trains from leaving.

And it came from the families.

- Did you go? - No. No, no.

No, because in '56, I was 15,

and when you were 15, you thought,

"The Algerian War will end. It will last one or two years."

You, personally, were you a communist activist?

I was.

We were in this group on the French Algeria side,

and that welcomed guys who went from Guy Mollet's socialists

to royalists.

We wanted to counter-protest,

but there were fifteen of us in the end,

while the other side was 1,000 to 2,000 as many.

We didn't counter-protest.

In those days, people rode bikes a lot,

and cyclists rolled by, and I was next to

- two military police... - It was here?

Down there.

There was a fence, and by the gate

were two guards. At that moment, two workers

came out of the factory,

wanted to join the protest.

What happened then? I don't know, but a guard must have lost his cool,

and he hit one of the workers with the grip of his gun.

- Right in front of you? - Right here. And blood

started to flow.

It made me angry. Everyone ran to the tracks,

and the train kept moving forward,

close to the protesters who were on the tracks.

It happened in a few minutes of course and...

a truck, a big truck, came from the Cours Berriat right here.

It was going downtown,

but ended up being stuck on the tracks. The train was here,

in the middle of the fence, pressure had built up,

then a guy yelled at me to pull the lever.

"Pull the lever"...

I then...

gladly obeyed the order.

I pulled a lever, a pressure lever I suppose, I didn't know anything,

I pulled it and it went...

The pressure was vented.

And it was for me.

I didn't... Now, the cops being...

and the altercations,

we were all running on the tracks and...

on each side, along the avenue.

I saw people toppling a crane

over in the Grands Boulevards area, on the road

and poured cement in the...

in the points.

We did some damage to keep the trains from leaving.

Meaning?

We laid a crane on the tracks, we threw cement bags on the guards.

- You did? - I'm not ashamed to say it.

Yes. I have a buddy at the FNACA who got hit by cement.

Gaston. He was military police.

We shared our memories.

- He was security, I threw cement bags. - That's it.

We were fighting for our rights, and I'd do it again.

- Same here. - Absolutely. No hard feelings.

- Right. - We became friends. I hope it lasts.

In Algeria together.

- Yeah. - We fought together in Algeria.

We fought here in France,

and we were pals over there.

- We did the same job. - We fought for an ideal.

Did you want to help the riot police?

The riot police? Not so much.

Not when you're 19.

Like in John Houston's movies,

where destiny doesn't care about the protagonist's intentions,

the train stopped by the protesters on May 18th, 1956,

wasn't carrying draftees, it was the Grenoble-Chambéry line.

A few days later, Ezio Goy left for Algeria,

soon to be followed by Bruno Henrietti,

César Delbello and Jacques Beck.

Elsewhere in the region, at the same time,

other protests took place,

other screams, other draftees who left heartbroken.

One day, the police came to the factory with our slip.

- And... - Many workers were in your situation?

There was another pal who worked with me,

and who died in Algeria.

He was my closest friend.

We worked together, Louis Barratier.

He died. From other villages, people died.

I'm sorry... I can never talk about those events.

We were re-drafted.

How did your colleagues react when you had to leave again?

I'd spoken with

with the guys, my buddies from the union.

I was part of catholic circles,

catholic initiatives,

I asked myself if I should go or not... I really didn't want to go.

I completed basic training in Metz, I stayed 18 months

from November '52 to February '54.

Then I was dismissed, and they called me to report for duty on May 25th, 1956.

I refused to go.

There was a lot of work at the farm,

the hay, the harvest, all that work had to be done,

and my brother was at school, and my father, alone with my mother.

Five or six days later, the police came for me.

Did you protest?

- In Voiron, yes. - What happened there?

There were mothers, wives...

of Algerian veterans who laid on the tracks to block the autorail.

We said.

"You won't go, but everyone else will..."

Maybe it was to ease our conscience but...

maybe it's better to go with the ones on the field,

and help pals become aware.

And we left for Algeria two weeks later. We left...

June 15th.

We were supposed to take a train at Marcilloles,

and in the evening, in the afternoon,

the train was blown up.

- Who did it? - We never knew.

- The train blew up... - The train or the tracks?

They blew up the track and the engine.

They were buddies from the area

who couldn't accept it, and tried to get people involved.

But before our departure, there was just 50,100 people from the entire region.

It wasn't...

We were still in a rural area,

where problems were less pressing than in the cities.

They put us in trucks during the night at Saint-Rambert-D'Albon.

Did the re-draftees protest on the way? In the trucks...?

We were escorted by the riot police.

They followed the train all the way to Marseille.

How did the re-draftees feel?

It wasn't pretty... Some of them deserted.

- At that moment. - Yes. Two. I don't know what happened.

Two guys, one of them was in my dorm,

deserted and left...

He left a message saying he was leaving for the USSR.

Now, were did he go? I don't know.

Then they put us on a boat at Port-Vendres,

because there were many protests in Marseille...

There wasn't much of a population in the area, the risks were lower.

How were the re-draftee's state of mind on the boat? Did they protest?

There were protests until we boarded.

I remember the ceremony in the barracks' yard,

when people sang "The Deserter". I didn't know the song then.

I thought it was beautiful, but...

I discovered it then.

The hostility was obvious.

The soldiers took arms backwards,

people refused to present them, I did that.

Protesters screamed against the war.

The re-drafted showed huge opposition.

- What about the officers? - They said nothing.

I remember when we got on the train, on the platform,

one said, "just let them do it. When they lose their buddies,

they will start doing war."

Going to Algeria was presented to us, and that's how I saw it,

as being about pacifying. The FLN was presented

through their attacks on civilians.

In 1954, the teachers,

burning farms, women and children getting their throats cut.

The country was calling us.

I had nothing against it at the time, in the mindset I was in.

I wanted to go. I didn't dislike the idea.

For the thrills or did you have political or ideological reasons?

No political or ideological reasons whatsoever, just the thrills.

I wanted to be in the army, like any good Frenchman.

But not in a militaristic mindset.

As I saw it, there wasn't even an issue,

I had to do my military service.

I left because I was drafted. I was a draftee.

But I also go because

I think that Algeria is a French département', and it should stay French.

When you land,

you hear the national anthem, you get flowers,

but it doesn't last.

Twenty-four hours later, you understand.

- What? - That you are in it.

That it's a real war in the end.

We landed in Algeria. It was a discovery.

I didn't know it.

We were surprised when we arrived, we were given Lebel rifles.

They were old WWI rifles.

We had a warm welcome.

We got shots against yellow fever.

We lowered our pants

and each one of us got his shot.

Then...

we waited a couple of days, and most of us, we were about a hundred,

went to the infirmary, because we caught the fever.

When we arrived, the captain, a Dijon mustard merchant, re-drafted like us,

told us... He told us...

"We're going there, but don't worry,

we're going for six months, we'll stick to the shade,

and if they don't mess with us, we'll take it easy."

We spent our first nights, a few nights, under a tent.

There were thousands of us, there were many of us.

The first night, the camp got shot at, there was panic, I panicked too.

We thought, "What's happening, they're shooting at us on the first night."

The watchmen, people like us who were rookies, all fired back.

It felt like a big attack.

They put us in a wheat field, a huge one. Told us we were sleeping there.

We put up the tents, and they fired at us that night.

- The first night? How did it go? - The first night.

Nobody died, but it was a warning.

Telling us, you have nothing to do here.

Did you understand what you were doing there?

Not really. We wondered why we were there.

And we had weapons, but...

the ammunition was sewn in the bags.

- So you couldn't fire back? - Well, no.

But the next day,

it wasn't sewn anymore.

That was fast.

Once in Algiers, you're given a gun.

It's strange.

We wanted to take leaves, because we were leaving the next day.

So we thought we would take a half day, visit Algiers.

We were nervous. We, jarheads, knew there were attacks in the streets.

To get here and get killed on leave.

We went out anyway. It was life as usual in Algiers.

I remember the day we went out.

- It went okay. - What did you do there?

I was second class.

I messed around, and I was second class.

Where did your region's draftees come from?

A lot were from the Lyon region, from the Drome,

most of them were workers, like me.

- Farmers too? - Farmers, yes. Of course.

Quite a few. I remember guys who got there, they'd taken the train

for the first time to join the army.

They'd never taken the train, nothing. They didn't even know what it was.

Algeria was their first trip.

Yes, it was. For me too.

This is the Taourirt bridge, the first post

where we landed when we got there.

We patrolled villages

in the area.

And in the morning, we'd often get guys

in the barracks, the huts,

and put them to work.

We'd give them some work to do.

We were supposed to fetch them.

- Did they volunteer for work? - Well, not really.

At the Taourirt bridge, we were in charge of the section on a piton,

we controlled several valleys, the road to Tizi-Ouzou,

and there was a check point where we'd control everyone,

including army convoys.

We got our water from a spring,

and we were allowed one helmet of water a day.

It did everything. Washed our faces, our butts, our socks, everything,

with one helmet a day.

Watch was scary.

We were afraid because, when we heard a noise, one time I shot...

Jackals came up in the trash.

And we heard can noises,

so we often opened fire wondering what it was,

because nights were a bit scary.

When you were on your piton, how did you entertain yourselves?

We didn't. We had nothing to do. We had a common room,

as big as half of this room, where we'd have drinks,

we had beer. Otherwise, we'd play ball in the camp.

When we came back from missions, sometimes we got wasted on beer.

It happened often.

One of my mates practiced photography.

Some played cards, but we were isolated.

We listened to local radio,

and the... I forget, but

- the songs that were popular at the time. - Do you remember?

Pardon? No, I don't remember. There was Gloria Lasso, I had a crush on her.

I saw my first dead body at that time.

A guy who had been executed by the FLN.

He had a hood over his head. We found him one morning in a ditch.

He had a bag tied with a wire.

A bullet in the head. The first dead body I found on that piton.

We found a mass grave during a mission.

Eleven guys had their throats cut.

- Civilians. Yes. - Killed by the FLN?

So we found that...

The smell was horrendous.

Our missions mostly took us

to the Djurdjura range. We walked a lot because the roads were cut.

We couldn't always take the truck, we'd often leave at night.

We did things like searches, grid searches.

At night there was always a night patrol.

A night ambush.

When you were on a mission, during a watch, were you afraid?

Better be. Often.

We were driving back to camp,

and they started shooting, we were in the woods.

I didn't see anything. I heard the noise, of course, the shots.

The first thing I did was jump out of the truck and hide.

I didn't shoot a single bullet.

- Why...? - I was scared.

I won't hide that I was afraid. I was always afraid.

I was the company's quartermaster, I was in charge of weapons.

We had weapons that had been used in Indochina.

Our rifles, our sub-machine guns, were often jammed.

Where there accidents?

I didn't witness any, but...

several times, we had to take weapons from draftees.

Often, the nerves gave out.

It was a danger for the section.

This is a lunch break during a mission

with our captain, Juif.

This is a mission, a grid search.

Those are burning huts.

I was scared. I won't lie.

I valued my life. Others did too, but some...

loved it, they loved war.

You know, it...

At first, you're surprised, because you never expect...

Of course, we leave with an objective, on a mission, for a grid-search,

following some intelligence, we know we're looking for someone,

but it's also a big surprise when you hear shots.

And in this case...

it's automatic. You have a weapon, you defend yourself.

Sometimes it went okay, sometimes not,

since some of the guys didn't make it.

What do you mean by "not okay"?

Let's say that several times I was...

we were surrounded by Fellaghas, that's what we called them,

and we only survived

thanks to artillery and air support.

I'd heard

Fellaghas calling to attack, "Bloody Frenchmen, we're coming."

And we had no ammunition left. So in those cases,

you just wait for the end, if you will.

- You thought it was over. - Yeah.

And there was another mission,

where I can say it was this close for us.

That day, it was the artillery who got us out of there.

The captain called the artillery

that was behind us, on the mission,

and after we gave our position, they started firing,

but we were so close to the Fellaghas

that shells fell right in front of us, so much so

that shrapnel hit us. I even...

took one, close to me.

You kept it as a souvenir?

This piece of shrapnel is very important for me.

A piece of shrapnel, and I can tell you these shells saved our lives.

Another time, there was a skirmish in the woods.

And...

I had a rifle

and that day I...

I had used up all my clips.

I had nothing left, so I was waiting.

The Fellaghas were moving on us,

and that day, the composure of our captain,

Captain Juif...

I have good memories of him.

He gave us so much courage that we were able to respond.

Bullets were flying everywhere,

we could see them fall around us, the leaves falling.

He stood tall and said, "Come on, kids, let's fall back."

That day, I think he saved us.

- You followed him? - We followed him.

You have to follow somebody like that.

It's great, it gives you a shot in the arm,

you can react to...

- And you had no ammo left? - No, I had nothing left.

- And you said you were waiting... - I was, yeah. That day I got really scared.

I thought about my family, my fiancée.

And you just wait.

Why is it so hard today to talk about that war?

I know it seems ridiculous,

but thirty years later,

maybe it's my personality,

but when you've seen death from that close,

it's still emotional 30 years later. Yes.

Do you talk about what you did there?

No, I never talked about it. I think this is the first time.

Even my family doesn't know all these details.

I think it's a good thing for draftees to talk.

Because in France, I think,

except for the families who suffered, the others don't know the Algerian War.

We will be walking up Grande Armée Avenue

to the Étoile. Flags in front...

- Do you feel pain when you talk about it? - Yes.

A lot.

"April 22nd, 1958,

to the President of the Republic, I was drafted to go to Algeria.

I chose to refuse to participate in the war France is waging in Algeria,

threatening to spread all over North Africa.

My conscience couldn't accept fighting against a people

that I would like to consider a friend and an ally of France.

I want to defend the friendship between the French and Algerians

and stay faithful to the French traditions of justice and liberty,

mentioned in the Constitution's preamble.

I am ready to take up arms to defend the France I love

more than anything if it is attacked, but I refuse

to commit actions that would fill me with remorse.

Please, Mr. President, believe in my attachment to

and my high consideration for the French Republic

and its constitution."

You wrote that?

I did, and I sent it

to President Coty, since it was before May 13th.

- He never replied, right? - Of course.

What did your superiors at the Communist Party say

- when you shared your decision? - They asked if I had the courage.

It was a hard path to follow to the end

knowing you will end up in jail for two years,

in addition to the 28 months of military service.

At that time, what was

the Communist Party's official stance about disobedience?

The party never encouraged disobedience or desertion.

The Communist Party always said

that soldiers belong to the army. They were right.

I went to see the Communist Party's Federation Secretary

to ask him how to join

the few disobedient draftees. I was morally ready to do it.

And he strongly discouraged it,

saying that

a Communist belonged in the army, under the Leninist principle.

You weren't bothered when communist representatives voted for special powers?

Afterwards. I asked the question afterwards.

Not at the time.

- You accepted it? - I did, because

at that time, there could still be a chance for peace

by a socialist government.

That government didn't take the opportunity.

But we thought it was still possible.

We had to give them special powers so they'd have the means.

Those means were to fight the war.

That too, but we understood that later.

- How late? - Much later. At the end.

It seemed that special powers could

contribute to, and should bring peace in Algeria,

after negotiations.

You'd left as a Communist beneath the uniform to oppose the war.

Did you feel that you could somehow oppose it on the field?

It doesn't seem obvious, indeed,

to be able to protest while being in uniform.

I was fearful of going there as a Communist.

I had a few friends who had returned

after being re-drafted, and who told

about what happened to them, the bullying, the humiliations,

a fear that was forced on them,

and I think it made me more afraid, and revolted by the war, that's true.

But you left anyway.

I left anyway, yes.

The atmosphere was such

that if you were isolated, there was no other choice.

- You carried a rifle like the others. - Of course.

- And if you had to shoot, you'd do it. - Of course. For sure.

When I went out, even when I had R&R,

I also had a gun on me.

And indeed, if you had to shoot you had to shoot.

In the right situation,

including if it were to save my own life.

There was a complete divorce between what happened and your convictions.

I don't know if you can say that,

it was also about our lives.

We were fighting a war.

And that war makes you

adopt stances that contradict those you defend.

If I had seen one of my buddies maimed,

I would certainly have adopted stances that were...

- Warlike. - Yes, for sure.

- Did you see wounded Algerians? - Yes.

I thought about it a lot. I picked up a wounded man,

and I talked to him... Well, questioned him,

and I found out he had worked at the Saint-Etienne mine.

He was a Saint-Etienne miner.

An Algerian worker who...

at that time had joined the FLN to fight the French Army.

It affected me quite a bit, the fact that...

I, a worker, found myself

facing another worker because of the government's will.

As a Communist activist

I was suspicious, and I was arrested

because ammunition was missing, they said.

And well, a detachment from Michelet came to arrest three men.

I was among them, I think there was a...

a Musl... yes, a Muslim soldier with me,

and a third man I've forgotten about,

and we were taken

to a police detachment facility, we called them DOP,

where I was interrogated,

and where I could hear

in the neighboring rooms, the screams

of people who were being beaten or tortured, yes.

I spent two nights there,

and I heard people, and women,

being beaten or tortured.

And what happened to you?

Well, I got beat up a little, but not too much.

Threats, many threats.

I was married, I had a child,

so they threatened my...

me never going back to civilian life, verbal threats.

And I don't know, after two days...

after two nights, I was released.

They gave me my weapon back, they had taken it,

and it was a sign that I was no longer a soldier for 48 hours.

And they moved me to another section, they put me in operations.

What happened after your letter to the president?

I was immediately locked up.

In prison. I was put aside, isolated from other soldiers,

because they feared contagion, if you will.

And I was escorted

to Algeria in the regiment I was supposed to join.

How did the officers treat you

when you joined?

They wanted to force me to go on missions.

They tried everything.

They pressured me,

they tried to send me out there without a weapon,

with a radio. They tried everything, I refused.

I said, no, I won't take part in this war that goes against my conscience.

Was there physical pressure?

Not when I refused, but after that

when I was jailed at Cherchell Military School.

- How long after that? - In the couple of weeks that followed.

I was brutalized by paratroopers.

- What do you mean by "brutalized"? - They clubbed me

- with a baton. - What did they say?

I don't remember exactly,

but the officer was obviously

an officer from the right, far-right even,

and he said something like,

"Guys like you should be shot."

He threatened me with his gun.

- Did you fear for your life then? - You don't think about that.

How long did you stay in jail at Cherchell?

A couple of weeks,

then I was transferred to the Algiers' military prison,

where I found other soldiers in my case.

During the entire war

there were about 40 guys

who refused to serve...

and who accepted to go before the court and be sentenced.

What were the conditions in the Algiers' military prison?

We were in like underground cells.

We didn't see much light.

There was two of us in a cell that was meant for one inmate.

And we would have our yard time between very high walls,

and we saw the sun a few hours a day.

But were not abused, we were...

fed normally.

That's when you went to military court?

I went in August 1958,

and I was sentenced to two years in jail for disobedience.

- And then you were transferred to France? - In the Fall.

The ten or twelve

from Algiers' prison,

plus others who were from other prisons in Algeria.

The fifteen of us were transferred

to Nîmes' central prison.

- How were the conditions there? - Much better.

We were with common law inmates, very long sentences,

life in prison for 15 years.

- We wondered why they put us there. - Did you talk to them?

We talked to them, lived with them.

But we had the guards' sympathy and help,

who, for union and political reasons, helped us. They'd send our mail,

send us care packages, gave us the news...

newspapers mostly, which were forbidden for us.

When I got out, I was reenlisted.

Prison didn't exempt you from military service.

I still had 14 months to do.

I did two months in France, and I was sent back to Algeria.

- And you didn't refuse to go? - I didn't refuse to...

a second time. First, because I'd already sacrificed

two years of my youth, and it was still hard

for my family, my wife, and for me

to go for another two years.

And maybe because it wasn't as necessary because the war

was already very criticized.

When you ended up with a uniform and a rifle

on a mission in Algeria, didn't you feel you went against

your disobedience from two years before?

A little but...

I was lucky enough to not ask myself that question directly.

How did you feel when you saw or heard about

young draftees, Communists or young Christians

fighting the war in a hard way?

I thought they were wrong, that they were brainwashed,

because... Brainwashed by the army's official propaganda.

I saw one of my mates,

in my regiment,

who was in the Communist Youth as a civilian,

he was a father and a husband,

and one day I caught him torturing along with the captain.

- It made me feel... I saw it. - You saw him?

I wasn't supposed to enter the room where it happened,

but then I was sent in

to give a message to the captain, and I saw what was happening.

- What kind of torture? - It was the Bathtub.

And... I...

I was devastated.

If it had been a paratrooper, I knew they did that,

specialized units did that,

but I didn't think a young draftee

could do that, and I don't think he was alone, there were others.

- Did you talk to him after that? - No. I didn't dare.

I didn't dare blame him, because... I don't know.

How can you explain a young Communist practicing torture?

You know, we were 20 years old and...

Uh... They were

manipulated by the army, and the official propaganda

eventually worked on some

and...

carrying a weapon gives strength...

to someone who usually doesn't have it.

It validated him, perhaps.

He felt like a man, perhaps.

What did you think at that point

about soldiers who deserted? Like Noël Favrelière.

At the time,

I thought they were wrong. Now, I think they were right.

Why?

I think I lacked courage

and that I should have deserted.

And defected to the FLN.

During the last war,

in the resistance, in Vercors, we saw

Germans who had deserted. They were right.

Even if they fought Germans.

The soldiers of Algeria are talking to you.

Tonight, let's listen to soldiers' messages to their families

from postal code 88106.

Corporals Marcel Innocenti,

Maurice Duhamel; infantrymen Bernard Lessieurs,

Bernard Minierlus, and although

they are just in from Europe, are happy to tell their parents

that the warm welcome from their brothers

was able to lessen the departure's regrets.

Libois, Maurice: "My little woman, kisses to you and my little girl.

I hope I will soon be with you.

Say hello to the family, Maurice."

We had no Contact with the population.

- You guys were isolated, right? - Completely.

The only contact we had with Europeans was at the hospital.

It admitted the French as well as the...

- The Sainte-Eugénie hospital. - Sainte-Eugénie.

- He can talk about it. - They admitted French

and Arab patients wounded in combat.

- And you were wounded... - I...

I took a...

A rebel shot me point blank.

I remember it well, there was a...

There was a very thick bush, you wanted to go through.

We couldn't do it, so we sent Perrin, the bulldozer. And you were wounded.

Then they evacuated me to Sainte-Eugénie,

the hospital that had no security.

There was a little hospital between Tizi-Ouzou

and Fort National, a field hospital.

It was run by sisters.

Do you remember that hospital?

- Vaguely. - And the doctor was a European.

Night was about to fall,

so we stopped there for the night.

But hey, they put me in a bed

next to the thugs that were aligned in front of me.

They were full of holes. One had a bullet... They were FLN.

FLN, MNA, they're the same to me.

One had a bullet in his cheek, his head was like this,

and the others had them in the gut. And I was lying down,

no watch at night, and my chums next door.

I laid low. Even knowing they were wounded, I laid low.

I spent the night awake.

I had my gun next to me, and I thought

we'll see. I didn't sleep.

You had to be brave.

You had to go. - Sisters ran the hospital,

and I had my own room,

and next door there was a dorm with 26 Fellaghas.

You thought, "That's it, I'm a Fell prisoner"?

I told the sister I wanted to go to Tizi-Ouzou or...

She just said, don't be afraid.

- You were totally safe. Better than... - I can tell you...

It's true, I was very well taken care of in that hospital.

Robert Zanoni, Raymond Didier,

René Perrin and Bernard Molroguier, who are sharing memories,

met over 30 years ago.

They fought the war together,

in the same regiment', the 6th BOA.

A tough, violent, exhausting war.

A fifth man is missing. Henri Girard.

The image I keep is that

of a kid's image of her older brother

who was 20, I was 12 so...

He was handsome,

very agreeable, I adored him.

A mason in Pont-de-Claix met Didier before deploying to Algeria.

And together, like Didier says, they partied.

On the peaks of Kabylia, he was with Perrin,

Zanoni and Molroguier, nicknamed Mo! on the pictures he took.

With them, he raised hell.

With them, he suffered and trudged.

He was awarded the Cross of Military Valor and two citations,

including one for saving a fellow soldier wounded under enemy fire.

Then, one day in January 1959...

The entire company left for the ridges to hold them.

And Girard, with the group,

we were in position, we were scouts to clear the ground in front.

We were half an hour away from the company,

from the section even.

Lieutenant Guignard led us.

- He was from Lyon. - He was a draftee.

On a side note, this lieutenant spent the night in the barbed wire fence because

he wanted us to shave every morning.

We weren't used to it.

- He wanted to discipline us. - Discipline.

Coming out from the mess hall, we wanted to take him.

We took him, tied him up and put him on the barb wire.

We told the guard not to shoot there

because Guignard couldn't get out from the barbwire.

We went to get him in the middle of the night.

We got nothing.

Well, anyway.

And now we were positioned in front, half an hour from the section.

We are ordered to leave,

to climb the peak to watch.

I tell Girard, Henri,

"We're going to sweat, I'm taking my jacket off."

Then suddenly there was an explosion, I thought we were being attacked.

I took off my jacket.

In that moment, you take your weapon and fire.

Anywhere, but you fire.

Nothing, no bullet, no detonation. It was weird.

I turn around and Girard was...

- Yeah. - He was dead.

And Jocelin... I didn't see anyone.

I started calling, nobody answered.

I thought, "That's not an attack, something's going on."

I look behind the ridge to see if someone was there. No one.

The lieutenant was screaming his lungs out.

Barbereau, who was behind...

There were two rocks, Barbereau was here.

Barbereau was blind.

Perez's ears were bleeding, half dead.

They were all wounded, except me.

Girard was half a yard away from me, no more, we were together.

Right away I ran to him,

turned him around and I saw that one of his grenades had exploded.

The pin accidentally pulled. I was left alone with five or six wounded.

Barbereau was behind a rock,

he was hit in the back of the neck.

Here. Made him blind.

- He's been blind since? - No, he...

- He lost his sight temporarily. - Temporarily?

He wasn't very cheerful to begin with.

They were all quite damaged.

Actually one died after that, two weeks later.

- He died. - Bézière bled through his ears.

- That's bad. - Not a good sign.

Then the others came in.

Everyone was on the peak, the chopper couldn't come.

The wounded were carried down on people's backs

500 meters down. It was nearly vertical but not very far.

I carried three on my back myself.

We were 20 years old, we were in shape.

The news came to us one day during lunch.

The mayor came with a deputy while we were eating.

He had just received a wire.

It was very, very hard.

I had a very violent reaction.

It was unbearable actually.

We couldn't believe it. It's not something you can accept

in the moment. It was inacceptable.

I...

I suffered... I experienced such pain.

I didn't know that it existed, that you could hurt like that...

In the moment, it represented

such devastation that I still feel pain talking about it now.

It's...

I was revolted.

I was a teenager, times that were already hard.

It upended my life.

I went to his funeral...

with...

Gilbert Flandin, a young man.

And Jean Sescatto from La Mute.

There was a huge crowd.

There was a group from the 6th BCA.

They came to serve as pallbearers.

There were many people.

We lived almost two years together.

Yes, the military brought us together.

The peace at the cemetery where Henri Girard rests today

is only disturbed by the din of the Rhône-Poulenc factory nearby.

Like him, 8,000 draftees accidentally died in Algeria.

Exploding grenades, jammed rifles, land mines,

stray bullets, overturned trucks.

Eight thousand dead, a third of the total casualties.

The Pont-de-Claix municipality in Grenoble's outskirts,

named a park after Henri Girard.

The adjacent street's plaque commemorates the ceasefire in Algeria,

March 19th, 1962.

The unintentional irony? Unfortunate coincidence? It is a dead end.

On the back of this picture, his last, taken five days before he died,

Henri Girard wrote: "Oh yes, it's a beautiful country. ”

- You were like the leader of the pack. - Exactly.

I was the leader of the pack, of the village, of everything.

I created a Harka, from A to Z, I trained people, taught them.

I was helped tremendously

by an old Algerian man, who'd done the Campaign of Monte Cassino.

He was a watchman at a soap factory. When he learned his country was ablaze,

especially in the Aurès mountains, he put himself at the French Army's disposal.

You have to know that the people in the Aurès are excessively simple.

Meaning that, for them,

for instance, the first principle I learned was to never take defectors.

And why is that? Someone who betrayed once, can do it twice.

Sometimes we visited "transit centers," meaning prisons,

and we told them simply,

"Would you rather stay in prison or fight with us?

You'll be clothed and paid."

- Why were they in prison? - They were FLN.

- Did you test them? - We did.

Here again, we tried...

Maybe they had to renounce their religion,

since they were simple people, it could work,

concretely that meant making them drink alcohol.

When I say alcohol, I'm talking about a can of beer.

Then we took these people

from villages, we rarely took single men.

Always married with children.

- And I'll admit it worked very well since... - You would watch the family?

Not so much, the family was not held hostage.

It was important to realize that if the man

wanted to desert and steal weapons,

he would have to abandon his family.

And he had only one fear, that we would

retaliate on his family, which we would never have done.

In the beginning, I only had 30 people in the field,

it wasn't much.

Poorly armed, the first weapons we had when we set up Harkas

were Lebels 1917 with ammunition from the same era.

I was supposed to disarm the Harka every night and put the rifles away.

I never did that.

I trusted them and I don't see how I could have trusted them

if I'd shown... They wouldn't have understood if I'd taken their weapons.

I was breaking the rules.

But I never had one deserter,

I never had to complain, on the contrary.

My life's great regret

is to have involved them in that adventure, meaning...

I really believed in it, because as a young lieutenant, I was told,

"France has to be in Algeria."

We relayed the message. They believed in it.

These people knew how to see everything. They observed nature, were close to it,

a little like our old farmers. They easily found hiding places.

I witnessed the discovery of an armory by a group of Harkis.

A paratrooper unit had searched the area for a day, didn't find anything.

An intelligence officer tells me to try with my Harkis

and I admit that, while our colleagues

taunted us,

we started searching.

At some point, a Harki came to me and said, "I found it, lieutenant."

He showed me a tree, an oak tree.

There was a branch five feet from the ground, but it had no leaves.

It was in a forbidden zone, no population was supposed to be there.

He tells me, "See this branch?

There's no leaves, a mule ate them, meaning a heavy load was brought here."

And he went around the tree, and after a while he said, "I found it."

That's the earth from the bottom, not the top."

Indeed, 200-liter kegs of oil were buried there,

with ammunitions, weapons hidden as well.

When one of your men did something wrong, what did you do?

Every wrongdoing was punished by...

lashes with a whip.

I didn't do it myself.

First, I was not supposed to do it. I just ordered the punishment, that's it.

I couldn't make mistakes.

I couldn't punish someone who didn't do anything wrong.

What kind of thing did you punish with lashes?

Stealing. The simplest things.

All wrongdoings were punished.

When one of your men committed a crime

- on the population... - That never happened,

but the punishment could have been...

It could have been more... Bring that person...

If the crime was against civilians,

even if they're just wounded,

the punishment could have very strong, to the extreme.

- The death penalty? Without a trial. - Exactly. Exactly.

Those who were punished on my orders, never resented me.

I lived alone with them, and they were armed to the teeth.

At any moment of the day, they could have eliminated me.

Combat in the Aurès was very secluded, given the nature of the terrain.

Skirmishes happened within 100 and 150 yard minimum.

Except at night, of course, they would use hunting rifles,

which are, in my opinion, the most formidable weapon invented.

Was there a geographic distribution between you and them?

The FLN would circle around us using the ridges.

Everyone lived on their own side. We walked at night and slept in the day.

Slept and watched.

- You were doing the same thing. - Exactly.

I respect the ALN fighters, I think I never...

I've treated their wounded.

I've always treated them like men. But in villages,

I had to fight against political administrations,

which represented

what I'd call the dregs of every war.

To feed themselves, the FLN had to take

supplies from villages.

They ruled by terror.

You've witnessed

the method used by the FLN to control the population.

Indeed. I saw fatalities, wounded civilians,

even mutilated ones,

to pressure them.

Those were methods I didn't appreciate,

a human being can't appreciate.

You make a distinction between fighter and political figure.

Always. And I still do it. Fighters are people

who risk sacrificing

the most precious thing they have, meaning their lives,

while politicians never sacrifice anything.

- They were murderers and torturers? - Those I've met were.

Intelligence for a unit like ours consisted of...

collecting all intelligence, gathering it,

to get an exact idea

of where camps were, of troop movement

and size, who commanded them,

does he have family in a village, does he visit them, does he have a wife,

children, does he visit them at night

to set up his operations?

- You achieved perfect knowledge? - I think so.

I perfectly knew the wife of a FLN sub-lieutenant

who was in a village.

And on a side note,

about the French Army's so-called atrocities, we never touched his wife

nor his kids, although her husband was a sub-lieutenant.

You're always on the fence when we talk about torture, atrocities.

I mean, I heard so much about torture, I heard so much

about atrocities from people who obviously

didn't go through it, never faced the problem,

so I'm on the fence about it.

It's easy to talk about something when you were not involved.

It's very hard to talk about it. I'd like to also add

that I never saw any torture

by French Army officers for no valid reason.

Once I had a gentleman who had documents,

which had the name of...

of people who were in a company of draftees.

He also had the blueprints of a post I knew very well

because I had led a section there.

I reported to my superior, who told me

we had to know more.

Why did he have the map of a draftee's post?

Why was there three names?

One sub-officers' and two draftees'.

Then, uh...

Well, I'll say right away that we didn't torture him to death, I've never seen that.

- What did you do to him? - Well, a few slaps.

- Even water on his face. - Electricity?

Electricity, but 12-volt, not too bad.

But no electricity on his genitals,

as it was described in many books.

So we could know why. It turns out that when the man talked,

that company's station was surrounded with 150 draftees inside,

they were completely surrounded by the FLN,

and the three names on the papers

were names of traitors.

At the said time, the post was to be taken,

and all the draftees were to be killed.

I think it was worth...

Sometimes you wonder, you think it's awful,

this and that, but I think at that point,

the lives of 150 people depended on it.

Isn't it humiliating to humiliate a man?

Now it is, yes,

but going back to what I said earlier about politicians,

they are the ones who make the wars.

If you don't want atrocities, don't do wars.

Our activities were activities

where we brought something. We improved posts.

We put civilians to work, who were paid.

They really waited every morning, and we had to make a choice

because there were many of them, and I could only take 50, no more.

Maybe 200 guys came.

But the thing was that you built bastions,

you built blockhouses, an electric line with landmines.

Not always. The use that I mentioned earlier

is that we took people to build a road, that's peaceful.

It was something we also had with Pierre, as engineers,

we constructed bridges, helped during floods.

This is a post reinforcement,

and we had Muslim workers from the area who came to work.

And we paid these civilians weekly.

The funny thing was that, speaking Arabic and having contacts in the population,

I'd figure out who the FLN representative was in the camp,

And during tea in the tent

-he said that half the workdays you gave -Right.

Were taken by the ALN.

This is Sub-Lieutenant Achin in front of my post.

You can see the trail

we used to leave the post, to leave the area,

and you see the camp.

Our camp was called Sidi Djillali, it was a place...

It was a holy place.

It is extraordinary to think, when you know the Arab world a bit,

that we occupied a holy place, where pilgrimages were supposed to take place.

We banned them. For the Arab world, it was an extraordinary attack.

Well, it also was the location of a spring, it's often both.

And I would pour bleach in this spring,

because the best way to disinfect is one drop of bleach per liter.

I put in two of course.

And while I was there, I never had hepatitis

or dysentery. It was my great pride.

But nobody would drink water

because it was just disgusting. Everyone drank beer.

This is one of my little patients. We were by the camp.

They had a perimeter to walk around the camp during the day.

At night it was forbidden, of course.

In Algeria, we grouped people in certain zones, hundreds of thousands.

And these people were called the Outed Nehar,

a nomadic tribe we forced to settle down. We surrounded them with barb wire,

in a forbidden zone,

which meant that night and day, we could shoot anyone moving outside the camp.

They were there without any possibility to work,

engineering used them a bit,

because we built roads and blockhouses on the border.

Many died, because being gathered like that,

even with sanitary aid that I tried to improve,

it was insufficient. Child mortality was a disaster.

Especially childbirth for women and babies.

Both died at a huge rate, almost medieval in proportion.

They refused my requests for civilian evacuations. I only got military ones.

That's awful, because these people had to stay on site and died on site.

A child had toxicosis, typical dehydration for gastro-intestinal illness.

The child was over one year old,

he had acute dehydration. They refused my evacuation request,

but I did the evacuation in a military ambulance

on purpose, without protection, against my captain's orders,

who had promised to arrest me, but I left anyway.

I was also supported by one military nurse

who came with me, and accepted to be punished upon return.

And we did this evacuation, it was really long.

And the child died on arrival.

And I was born in Grenoble, not in Italy.

My parents naturalized me at birth.

They were both illiterate.

They arrived in Grenoble like all immigrants, even today.

They had to work, manage on their own.

Then they had me, and I was this immigrant couple's only child.

I was raised in poverty, experienced it. My childhood was marked by poverty.

What did you parents do?

Both my parents worked in a factory

in Grenoble. It no longer exists, but it manufactured bleach.

The bleach was called Neva, anyway.

They were both workers in that factory,

and I lost my father to an accident in the factory.

We never knew if he suddenly felt ill,

if he was asphyxiated by the gas, because there was gas as well.

In any case, as he stepped over to get to the other side, he fell in the bleach.

So he died from burns, drowning, everything from that bleach tank.

I lost my father when I was five.

For me, leaving for Algeria was unfair,

profoundly unfair...

Let's say that,

when you're 20, when you're a little bit of a bad boy,

because I was, I lived in a neighborhood that...

At the time it worked that way.

I wasn't a thief or a gangster, but I was a bad boy in the neighborhood.

- I was rowdy... A rebel, yes. - A rebel.

So I experience it like a tragedy.

But the real tragedy was for my mother,

because she ended up all alone.

And she experienced it as a tragedy.

Somebody who can't read or write, who doesn't follow anything,

who understood nothing about politics, I didn't either,

no support, no family,

nobody to go to one night

to ask if you can spend the night.

- It was a big tragedy. - You knew what you were doing there?

Yes, I did.

During basic training colleagues told me,

"If you become an officer, you'll make money,"

and we needed money. We didn't have any.

We lived on credit everywhere, at the baker's, the grocer's, everywhere.

I was told that if I became an officer after basic training,

I could make some money.

- So I left... - Corporal.

As a corporal. But in any case,

a corporal was considered a sub-officer,

so I had a sort of subordinate officer status.

I had a sub-officer's salary,

the privileges of a sub-officer, meaning that I wasn't in a dorm,

I'd share a room with a mate.

So I had privileges, and also the privilege to make money.

The money I was able to earn as a sub-officer

and as a volunteer for various things, I sent back to France.

As a sub-officer, what was your relationship with your superiors?

- With officers? - Let's say that...

as an immigrant sub-officer,

it turns out that, at one point, I was the only one

to have an Italian sounding name.

That's how it was, maybe there were others after that.

And during a meal

in the officers' mess hall, where there were officers and the captain,

the lieutenant, one ribbon, two ribbons, people whose job it was.

And at the end of the table

sat a draftee, a sub-officer, but a corporal.

- They put you at the end of the table. - I was at the end.

It was funny at the table,

there was the captain and the corporal at the other end.

That was grand. But I didn't quite belong.

I'd say it was a little inappropriate.

- And... Oh, yeah. Well... Not me. - So they'd let you know.

I didn't personally, I didn't have the right... No.

I didn't do it.

But I was made to feel my presence wasn't justified...

But that was the rule.

I had a seat at the table. I'd eat like the captain across the table.

We had the same mess kit, and we had the same food.

But it bothered people.

Then one day, I was...

I was caught, and humiliated, saying...

I couldn't tell word for word.

There was a discussion, and it was the follow-up

that led to the comment,

"It's not normal that a Macar..."

Because Italian immigrants were called "Macars" at the time.

Today, Arabs are called "bougnoules."

Macar for macaroni.

We had a star on our heads.

So I was the Macar of the officers' mess hall.

And one day, I was called a Macar.

And I really didn't take it well.

- How did you react? - Well...

- I reacted very poorly. - Or well, maybe?

Well for me, poorly for them.

I had a very bad reaction, it was violent one.

There were consequences for me, because after that, I was...

- You have... - I was picked to do...

When someone had to go do something,

my group was chosen, I was.

Life was very hard, not because I was an army man

in Algeria, where we'd risk our lives, we were not there

to twiddle our thumbs...

but life was very hard, because I was constantly worried

about what happened in Grenoble,

and that's something that always ate away at me.

It ate away at me on one hand,

and stimulated me on the other. That's what drove me.

And maybe it was what kept me from...

messing around, I would say.

- You wanted to? - I did.

- What kind of messing around? - Everything you can imagine.

Everything you can imagine. And I didn't do it.

I held my duties.

I respected my...

I respected the service,

and it was important for me to come home, my head held high.

Always out of respect

for myself, and mostly for my mother

- who was waiting for me. - Would you hear from her?

Well... The problem, I took it very hard,

I took it very hard. The problem was that...

again, she could neither read nor write.

This neighbor, a lady, who lived with us,

read my letters. And, of course, when I wrote,

I would write to my neighbor first.

And between us, there was a bond.

The first paragraph was for her...

No, the first paragraph was for my mother, where I made up stories,

and the second was for her.

I told her the truth. I told her what I was really doing.

But for tranquility...

the tranquility at home,

I was managing a garage,

we'd fix trucks. And at our location, there were flowers everywhere.

There was a pond, there was a place with a reservoir,

a nice pond with flowers and palm trees, grass. It was a gorgeous sight.

I insisted on taking pictures. I would take pictures by the water,

near flowers, big magnolias, I didn't know what it was.

But I had beautiful pictures. Looking at them, you couldn't say,

"My son is in Algeria, he's fighting." It was impossible.

So I would regularly take pictures, at the same place in a different outfit.

Your mother never suspected anything?

I don't know, actually.

I don't know, I've never known.

I think she made a lot of effort to adhere to...

to what I wanted her to believe.

Because I received mail, my neighbor would write it,

and when I received it, I got to say or think

that the letters weren't truthful.

I was allowed to think that. And one day, the consequences

made me say her letters weren't truthful.

When I returned, when I was released and got back home,

well, when I saw my mother again,

one day I saw her again, and I didn't see her as I left her.

That led me to think that the letters I received...

I had received letters that appeased me,

- but it wasn't real. She did. - The neighbor played the same game.

You remember when you saw your mother?

Yes, absolutely.

Yes.

Good question... Oh, yes.

Let's go back to that later.

Where did your draftees come from?

From everywhere.

- Socially? - There were Bretons.

There were Bretons. I have nothing against them, but there they were.

And there were people from the Cantal.

A lot of... It's funny because there were many people from the South.

Marseilles, Aix-en-Provence,

Avignon, many people from the South.

A motley crew.

Bretons and people from Marseilles don't speak the same way.

You could say they were of a different cloth.

- Were social differences prominent? - Yes, very.

Very much.

Yes. Social backgrounds, they were many people from...

I'd say people from... How can I say this?

It was poor.

You can't say... There were no educated people.

That's it, there were no educated people.

They were people from the street, the neighborhood, the country,

rural, if you will, but it was very short.

So, I'd say people were...

were conditioned to obey.

When they rebelled they did it because they couldn't anymore.

But it wasn't... The boys weren't...

They didn't have the intellectual means

to go against the orders they were given.

Do you know today how your mother coped with your absence?

Let me tell you, she died of it.

This is Sergeant Jean Aperté.

I'm taking this opportunity to say hello to my family, to my brothers and sisters.

Morale is good. Health is good.

Private First Class, Joseph Luciani. I'll take this occasion

to deliver good news to my parents,

and my impending return.

Private First Class Trigot. Sending love to my parents.

Morale is good, health...

Infantryman Robert Bazy taking this opportunity

to send love to my fiancée and to my family, and health.

- Robert. - This is Albert Siocat,

dear parents, I'm very well. I hope it's the same for you,

that your trip back from your vacation went well.

Much love to all.

- You connected to France via mail? - Yes, it was the mail.

I would write to my wife almost every day.

Because I got married when I went to the army.

From France, we were informed via mail.

- It would get through? - It did. It was sacred.

Better the mail than food.

I didn't even write to my parents for 18 months.

Yes, but you're a loner.

To know if I was alive or dead,

they wrote to the battalion command post.

The captain forced me to write.

It was hard to write when we were

in the mountains, all over the place. First off, we were not equipped.

When we came back down to camp, we'd write.

- You wrote about everything? - Of course.

I don't think there was any censorship.

There was nothing in the letters I got, like the ones I sent.

When I wrote to my parents or to my wife,

- I never wrote what happened. - Why?

To not worry them.

What did you write then?

The minimum of things that could hurt.

I didn't want to write I was okay, I wasn't.

I didn't want to write about what I experienced either, because I thought

it would have

worried and upset them, what I didn't realize

was that not writing worried them much more.

We received mail about every day.

Our Piper would fly over us and throw it.

But ours was taken once a month.

Every time there was a convoy to Michelet

or a chopper coming for a wounded soldier.

- Your letters were sent every day? - Every day.

Not sent, but I wrote every day.

They wouldn't leave every day.

I wrote every day and she'd receive them in a package.

"I am on the watchtower. It is four thirty in the morning.

And I just drew you a caricature of the landscape we are overlooking.

Just a part of it.

On the other side, there are only mountains.

My dear,

if you knew how many hours I spend looking at this section of the land,

I am disgusted.

I think of you, I write, I draw, I dream,

and I look to the setting sun.

Here, I'll mark where it disappears for you.

My love, I'm embracing you in thought.

Never have I spent such long hours waiting.

A year goes by so quickly when we're together.

/I is five 0 'clock, and the sun is rising. ”

That's on the side of the section between Port-Cé and Sebanna.

With my engineers, we were reinforcing the electrified fence.

And we kept laying mines.

Between the electric part there were landmines, and then a trail.

We used to avoid the trapped and electrified parts.

And that allowed us to repair and to bring in heavy gear.

Along the Algeria-Tunisia border, same thing on the Moroccan side,

there was a fence, a barb wire network, in which there was

an electrified part, 5,000 volts.

We were from the national power company, or the private sector like me.

We had one thing in common, we were all electricians.

We were military on the side.

Were there many intrusion attempts?

In the Kouif zone, we practically had one attempt a day.

- Every day. Nights? - Practically.

Every night, actually.

With, of course, an uptick on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays,

which in the mind of the Fell thought was the period when, normally,

people were less active.

ALN fighters manage to come either through...

they would breach

the network with Bangalore torpedoes, big pipes filled with explosives.

They'd slide them in the fence,

they would blow it up, and they had a yard-wide access.

We had to intervene. If we didn't reconnect soon,

we could have a streak of intrusions, which happened.

They started by cutting at the end,

and they got closer, and it became harder to detect.

You had to go with a toolbox, a bag, in the spotlight,

get into the network, and repair. It was very unpleasant.

- Why? - We knew that the guys who cut it

- were across the fence. - They shot at you?

Well, yeah. It happened.

That's a night skirmish. We had to repair the breach.

The marines helped us, and we worked under the firefly lights.

For me, our adversaries were invisible.

They were increasingly ingenuous.

They'd find more ways to go through. And so were we.

We'd trap our networks, we'd make dead ends.

When the guys came with their Bangalores,

they would get... It didn't create huge damage,

but the other side got a nice shock.

- What pushed you to risk your life? - I don't know.

I think it...

- Was it your fence? - Probably.

Don't you think today that it was

ridiculous to risk your life for a 100-yard fence?

Do I find it ridiculous today to risk my life for a 100-yard fence?

I don't. No.

The day I saw death from up close

on the network,

it was friendly fire.

Instead of the people on the other side,

it was a guy in the back, with his Jeep and a machine gun.

And when he saw our Jeep coming,

they were always in the back and we were close to the network

to try and see where the cut was. He panicked and fired.

- On you. - On us. The round went through the Jeep,

wounding my deputy who was in front.

That's when I was closest to death.

- With French bullets? - Yes.

- Did this type of accident happened often? - Very.

Very often, simply because we were electricity professionals,

and in hindsight, we were taking too many risks.

The boys on the other side were spread along the network,

some had been serving for a couple of months.

They were alone in their Jeep with their gun, and they were scared.

Accidents occurred.

They happened because of what we called inkpot mines.

We had a problem,

I didn't have it too much but some mates had a big one,

their fuses were bright,

and crows would come and take the mines out of curiosity

thinking it was food, and put them down, but not where they found it.

Sometimes we had nasty surprises.

We also had violent thunderstorms.

Water would flood the entire field, and we'd find mines everywhere.

That's why we couldn't dispose of the mines.

The wadis went up taking the mines, and for a couple of weeks,

Jeeps would often... We stayed in the Jeep if we could.

Jeeps would blow up on landmines, wheels blowing up, Jeeps overturning.

When the wind blew we had tufts of grass

flying around and that ended up in the network.

We weren't lucky, because it would get stuck in wires.

When the tufts of grass got stuck,

it pulled on the thing, the mine came up and exploded.

- It's true. - Were there accidents?

There were some, yeah.

There were accidents.

- Serious ones? - Unfortunately.

Yes, there were accidents. Privates lost their lives.

- How do you feel about it? - Something profoundly unfair.

Something profoundly unfair. Of course.

Saying that we lost someone, because we were given an order

that was misplaced, inappropriate. We executed an order

when we should have, and we had the right to, disobey it.

- Were there protests back at camp? - Yes, there were.

- There were protests. - How did it translate?

Is it important?

It'd say people came back with murder on their mind.

Murder, of course, for the one who gave the order.

Killed in action.

- Bertin, Jacques-Francois. - Killed in action.

- Boudurier, Arthur. - Killed in action.

Are you proud you were a Red Beret?

I was one, and I still am one.

And I'll always be. I took part to the protest in Grenoble.

I was in the group at the construction site, and we threw what we found.

- You didn't mind being in a unit... - On the contrary.

If I had to do it again, I'd ask for the same unit.

In terms of education, I was the weakest. I had a secondary education.

Two or three were volunteers, the rest were deferments,

in two regiments made up of .90 % of draftees.

Some were straight from business school, or were already law clerks.

We had two seminarians. To give you an idea of the mood,

far from the braggarts,

the big mouths like those of the paratroopers.

We made a section book.

It's a little hard to recognize oneself, but you can see yourself in the pictures.

The entire section, plus ranking officers.

And we made it so

- each of us had the title of a movie. - What was yours?

- Bitter Rice. - What about you?

- Tell me, I don't have my glasses. - The Silent World.

'94 concentrate from Spain and Grenoble, his accent matched his mustache, ”

- Gone. "...hides his reined-in passion." - Yeah.

"He expresses it in his letters nestled in his upper bed.

And let us glimpse at it 'When you dance, dance, dance...'

- It was the famous... - The time's chorus.

- Gilbert Bécaud's chorus. At that time. - Yeah.

- Did you listen to...? - Music, yes.

I used to sing a bit.

The atmosphere among paratroopers was great during basic training.

We had a sub-lieutenant, Michel Boëns,

a young reservist,

and this guy had created an extraordinary team.

I can read something if you don't mind.

For example, something he wrote:

"One last time, I saw you climb the ladder,

clumsy, leaning left, to counteract the propeller's wind.

One last time, I saw you look for your place in the plane,

turn around and sit gently facing the tail of our plane.

This time you hooked calmly, analyzing, measuring, understanding your moves

with more gravity than other days.

One last time, the green light came on. I wanted to jump last to close the door

that I had opened a few months when you arrived.

Under our cupolas, to the land of men, which is sometimes so good to leave."

Montauban, November 1956 - Pau, February 11th, 1957,

sub-lieutenant Michel Boëns, he was about 23. I think.

He fell leading his section May 10th, 1957, IXth RCP.

We had amazing leaders. They were great with us.

We were free, we didn't have to salute all the time.

We could tell them what we needed to tell them.

They were people who had known the Second World War,

who had been in Indochina, had been wounded, several times,

who were very decorated, and strongly believed in French Algeria.

We were the first on missions.

Thanks to helicopters, they flew us far and we walked back. Kept us in shape.

We weren't very homesick in the great Kabylia.

Some mountains were as high as here. In Jura there's snow.

Do you remember the first time under fire?

Yes. I came in the next day, at 11 a.m., there was a skirmish

but quite far away. I had the radio with the antenna,

I had to shadow the section leader, to stay close,

and I was warned that the first to be shot were the leader and the radio operator.

So the first thing I did was to sit down.

The leader didn't want me to, so he said, "Stand up.

You have to stay with me." I said, "Yeah, but I'm tired."

I didn't work so it was a moment of fear, but then,

in the mood, you don't even think about it.

I didn't know much. I heard bullets, I thought they were firing on us,

and I hid, more or less. I tried to hide behind a tree.

He said, "It's far. There're no danger. There's no bang, we're okay."

We were in a wadi, in the Great Kabylia,

we were doing a grid search in a wadi, and it was...

the most striking. I raised my head above a rock and I saw

two black holes right in front of me, a rifle's barrel and...

- How far? - Three feet from my head.

I got lucky, maybe there was a god for paratroopers. I shot first.

That's why I'm here with you today.

I spent the night by the side of a wounded individual.

That was the first skirmish.

There were nine dead.

Including an officer, a friend.

And Sub-Lieutenant De Guitard.

Next to me, a young sergeant who was hit in the chest. We couldn't evacuate him.

I talked with him a bit. I said, "Don't worry,

I think the helicopters will come." Unfortunately,

they could only land on the ridges opposite.

They evacuated wounded of the 2nd REP.

There was a lot of fighting on the ridges opposite.

And being completely exhausted,

I fell asleep, and when I woke up at five a.m., he was dead.

People always forget that the FLN had scopes like us.

They had state-of-the-art weapons.

Be they .303 British, Italian Statis,

which did tremendous damage.

They didn't have many of them, but we could hear their weird noises.

It's true, the bullets I saw

could take out a limb. If it hit an arm or something else, it made a huge hole.

The guy couldn't survive. We were wary of them.

It felt like...

As soon as we heard that noise, our ears would flap shut.

After a mission,

our section was stuck for eleven days

without water to wash or shave, barely enough to drink.

When we came down to base, they were miserable.

There no socks in boots.

They called us the scented soldiers, but we were far from it.

Uh... '58,

in the regiment, about 60 killed and 50 wounded.

In total, yes. Even more than 50...

killed. Because in '58 there was the Souk Ahras battle,

where the Fells cut through the perimeter in several places, they got in,

about 800 guys.

They attacked from everywhere.

Back-up arrived a little later,

and the 9th fell into it.

A company was flown in the middle of...

of two katibas. There were 300 guys.

And when they landed they fired at them,

but no one was wounded. When they landed, they saw

Fells who surrendered, young ones, their hands up.

Unluckily for them, it was a tactic, they used a whistle,

and when the whistle blew, they all got down, six to ten machine guns fired.

Except for the FM who had lied down,

most were killed by the first shots.

And the battle lasted four or five days.

In total...

according to reports, there was about 550

Fells, or OLs, as we called them. Outlaws, or rebels,

who were shot and made prisoners.

But among us, many killed and many wounded.

In 1958, out of 365 days,

that regiment was in the field 254 days,

lost 38 lives, including four officers,

and nine sub-officers, I think. The rest were troops, and about 110 wounded.

To give you an idea. We permanently had a...

horrifying regimen of physical pain, very hard.

When I came home, I weighed 120 pounds for 5'10".

We slept in the field, lived like dogs,

spread toothpaste with our finger or our gums bled, we only had combat rations.

And always... That's how it worked for these operations.

One day, 200 clicks to the North, 300 to the South.

I suffered more... We went to the Negrine Oasis

in June, July, but I suffered ten times more from the cold than the hot weather.

We drove in trucks entire nights, we saw snow in October in the Aurès.

The rain came down for entire nights,

and we three were in a water hole, no fires allowed to avoid being shot.

And you think, "it's impossible,

I won't make it, I'll die before tomorrow."

And the next day the machine starts again.

There was air support, too.

They helped us quite a lot.

When we attacked, there were six coming behind us,

we had white squares to identify ourselves,

and T-6's came to Strafe

100 or 150 yards in front of us.

The guys put their heads down, of course.

And then... You leave...

under a hail of bullets, you don't even realize it...

You come in contact. You become crazy.

And the thing is done,

there's a silence, a big silence.

And you think friends were hit,

while we lived through it. Out of luck. It's luck, that's it.

Did you respect your adversaries on the field?

You see everything. On the other side I saw cowards and courageous guys.

In the Muslim, or the Arab at the time, The average French guy only saw

a pimp or a coward.

I saw extremely courageous guys on the other side, and I tip my hat.

What did you do with the Algerian wounded?

During combat,

a guy who was severely wounded could be finished off.

- Why? - Did you see that?

I did, yes.

That's war, because the guy didn't stand a chance.

If it took him 15 or 30 minutes to die, he had zero chance

to make it if he stayed alone in the field.

And another round was often fired. But I'll say that I, myself,

saved wounded soldiers.

I remember two of them in a mine tunnel,

that I took out. My men who were exhausted weren't too happy.

One, the old one, we carried him

for about four hours in the mountains, in a tent.

And the young one, who only had a limp, he was just hit on the foot,

supported by two of my men, he understood,

and we carried him for four hours to call a chopper and evacuate them.

This is a prisoner.

A prisoner they brought back, about to be interrogated.

We made prisoners.

When I carried the radio, we had a prisoner.

Well, poor guy, I took advantage of him and put the radio on his back,

that's it. It relieved me.

But when we stopped to eat,

I shared my rations with him.

In the regiment, at the end of the mission, prisoners

were passed on to the Second Bureau or to the region supervisor,

but we didn't see them again.

Then what became of them... We knew about intelligence.

We knew that a prisoner taken by the Second Bureau,

we had a mission the next day. The guy talked.

How did questioning go?

It went well, far from what some think

that we tortured them, that's not true. That's bullshit.

Maybe there was... like everywhere else.

We'd question them, and they were like anyone,

they were scared, and they talked after a while.

- They talked spontaneously? - Spontaneously.

Sometimes it took a day or two, but they talked.

But we never used methods

like that during the latest war. It didn't come to that.

- Electricity? - No. Not us.

Now if it happened elsewhere... Not us.

A few blows though?

Not particularly, other means were...

They are part of the work of Second Bureau workers, but not necessarily

blows or things like that. No, that's not true.

- And where did the prisoners go after? - We would give them back.

Because we were on missions, the helicopters brought them back.

Some joined and became Harkis.

Others, I don't know. Maybe they were killed. Now, that's not our job.

They always say, and that's what drove me to speak,

having enough of everything they've shown for 30 years,

"Paratroopers equal torture." I can say it in earnest,

the entire time I served in that regiment,

until late January 1959, I never saw one case of torture,

never. Crimes on civilians, never.

It's true that the war was very tough,

but they can't always show us like... And I think about the friends

like the one whose letter I read, extraordinary guys.

It's staining their legacy to tell and show only one version.

And torture or not,

there's not a clean or dirty war, it doesn't exist.

I was nine when I saw war crimes. I was nine in 1944.

And I saw young Germans

who were behind

and trekked up the Rhône Valley. I was in a farm with my brother,

and the guys, they weren't SS, it was very hard.

They were shot. They only had pants, no shoes,

and their papers on their chest.

And if one of them looked young to me when I was nine, he held a rosary,

he really had to be young. A 16, 17, 18-year-old.

And it happened a few time in our region.

It doesn't mean there are

many extraordinary people. Misconduct happens.

It's true there were "wood chores." It exists in every war.

- It will always exist. - Did you witness any?

Well, yes. You had to.

But those were people from the army, not civilians.

- Did you ever take part? - No. Not personally.

- But you saw them? - Yes, we saw them go

to "get wood." First, we wondered what it was.

- Where does the expression come from? - Can't say.

Maybe they took the prisoners to go get wood,

it was a chore. They'd go but they didn't come back.

- There wasn't judgment. - They'd been judged before.

What about you? Could you have tortured a prisoner to get him to talk?

I think it would have been very hard.

That said...

It's mostly against terrorism. In Algiers I couldn't have,

but I'll admit there are moments.

It's sad, it's war, that what I said, there are no clean or dirty wars.

There's no way it can be one or the other.

War is atrocious in itself.

Certainly, people who...

You have them, knowing bombs could be planted on the street the next day.

Anybody would wonder.

What should you do? Let the bomb explode or torture?

But between this technique and what was more widespread

in sectors where people were isolated, poorly supervised...

It probably happened there, but more out of fear, cowardice and sadism,

and not to stop terrorists' bombs, and that's much worse.

Did you happen to visit the family of a friend killed in action?

Yes, I did. The first family I met was when I returned for Algeria.

I found out Fabien died, so I visited his mother and father,

and his brothers, because we were very connected

through the village. I think it's one of the hardest things.

DIED FOR FRANCE

That's why when you visit a grave

even 10 or 15 years later, you still feel the same thing.

We were 20 and not trained to...

We were told to go there, we went, we did our duty.

Then the paratroopers, we were proud to be paratroopers.

We had our certificate, we did our jumps.

We were special.

Then things came up. They said paratroopers

were thugs, torturers, this and that.

So I kept quiet in civilian life, I didn't say anything.

Then 30 years passed, and I think we should talk about it,

because

some of our mates are on the brink.

I got news from some, even long after.

I tried to track down others, people I'd lost track of.

Boys of extraordinary dedication.

There's even one who found me

three years ago, he called me from across the country.

And I'll admit, he must have been drinking,

but he called at 7 p.m., I picked up.

I was at the office, working late.

I answer, "Robert André," and this boy tells me,

"I want to kill myself. I wanted to call my brother,

and I wanted to call you, sir."

And it took 45 minutes to de-escalate the situation.

I said, "Time has passed, no need to call me sir.

I have been looking for you for years, now I think you can do it,

but before you do, let's meet over a bottle of champagne."

And I think I de-escalated the situation, I had him again on the phone

a couple of weeks later, and I lost track of him again.

They did their job. They were drafted, didn't complain,

expecting the re-drafted, but they went anyway.

I think...

we have a right. We have a right, yes.

When you came back, did you still sing Bécaud?

No. No. It was over.

No, because they'd ask me to sing in the section.

I sang the Bécaud song. It was...

"I had only one friend."

And with each skirmish, we lost one or two,

and then I refused to sing it.

Alonzo, we called Zébi.

Alonzo, when he came back,

he was no longer the Zébi we knew. He was someone else.

He was a happy boy, he sang, he joked.

The life of the party.

He was still inclined to laugh and tell jokes,

but he stopped laughing as quickly as he started.

But before that, we knew when it started, but never when it ended.

And this guy came back traumatized. I think he came back traumatized.

One day you will see we will meet

Somewhere, anywhere Guided by chance

We will look at each other And we will smile at each other

And hand in hand Down the streets we will go

But time goes by so quickly The evening will hide

Our hearts, these two thieves Who keep their happiness

And we will arrive On a gray square

Where the cobblestones

Will be sweet to our gray souls

We always fell into ambushes, so you needed a keen eye and to be fast.

The other guys would set up an ambush, and it was very costly.

It was very fast, and many people died.

We barely got to the undergrowth, we were caught in heavy fire

by a Fellagha who was certainly waiting for us.

Since it was always surprise attacks, you had to shoot first,

because there was no mercy.

I was in the fifth truck.

It was a notch-landmine set on the fifth truck, mine.

I blew up on that mine.

The back of the vehicle was completely torn to shreds.

Four dead. I got off with nothing, except some...

I was deaf for a while. But nothing else, physically.

- And a second time... - Do you have time to see what's coming?

No, no, no. It's very quick. Very quick.

Right away, there was what we call the "fireball".

People immediately jumped out the vehicles,

and we fired everywhere. It lasted a few minutes.

And we picked up the men who were killed.

We fought a while, the guys insulted us. You remember?

Yeah, but I was on the...

- I was on the side of... Right. - On the slope. Going up.

- And we were at the bottom. - How did they insult you?

"Bloody Frenchmen..." They called us everything.

- They were screaming, yeah. - The full list of names.

- Yeah. They impressed us. - They were very close.

But they fought too.

And we fired for a good while, and then it became quiet.

The guys fell back.

Serge came down without cover.

- Carelessness got him. Right? Yeah. - There were five of us.

They gave the order to fall back, and when we went back up,

the five of us were isolated.

And then, the machine guns started shooting,

two of them, which couldn't be too far, because you could hear them close

when you know automatic weapons.

And we were five mates.

I had gone through sub-officer school, I was a corporal.

When I heard the automatic weapons, I broke from the group,

thinking.

If an automatic weapon is fired, it'll aim at the group, not at me.

I was mistaken, that wasn't the scenario.

He aimed at me and didn't let go.

Since I heard it close,

and the impact was close, I could see them on the ground,

I saw that I wouldn't run for very long.

I was caught be the fire, I was hit and I fell, I rolled.

You roll, you hear shots, you hide behind trees,

it fired. When bullets hit the...

I was behind a sort of olive tree,

and when the bullets went through, wood chips would fall.

I saw that the guy was adjusting his aim.

And I saw I had to get out of there.

I let go, I started going down a little,

then I heard shots again.

Then I settled a little further down, maybe 20 yards.

I heard laughing, I heard talking in Algerian.

I opened my eyes, there were two Algerians 20 yards away

as if they were in a hole. I could only see half of their bodies.

One was in camouflage, he was firing, and the other had a black sweater.

And then I played dead.

I played dead for an hour and a half. And I was bleeding to death.

When I rolled over, my leg hit me everywhere.

Because it was all crushed up.

The mate who came to get me grabbed me by the hair.

It woke me up. And I saw his rifle swinging under my nose.

He even asked me if I was a Fell. I said, "Are you crazy,

I'm in the 4th company," he didn't recognize me.

My face must have been covered in dirt, blood.

We ran.

And we brought Serge back up, we pulled him. His leg was twisted.

And we pulled him,

to get him up there, on the ridge.

We made it.

Well, three or four guys climbed with him to the top.

Because we had to maintain cover at the bottom.

And we stayed as cover.

But before going back up...

- They took an hour and a half, to come up. - They gave the order

to launch smoke bombs to show air support where to shoot.

That's when, if you remember,

that the smoke bombs fell on our faces.

- Yeah, yeah. Now you mention it? - Remember?

That's when they pulled you faster,

and we managed to climb to not be caught in air support fire.

I didn't know if I would make it.

My mates climbed up, I could hear them breathing.

They kept the helicopter from leaving, because they wanted to leave.

They didn't want to fly at night. It was getting dark.

Lucky for me, or I wouldn't be here.

The helicopter didn't want to wait?

They wanted to go before nightfall.

I wasn't the only one, they must have had other people.

So they took me

to Algiers, to the hospital... Not Algiers, Tizi-Ouzou.

- I was in Tizi-Ouzou. - What did you have exactly?

My leg was crushed to 1.5 feet.

They finished the cutting. I ended up

without a leg.

- You were amputated? - I was amputated.

On January 12th.

I stayed a month there, after the amputation, before going home.

Then they put me on a med-evac plane.

From there, I flew to Desgenettes.

I arrived in Desgenettes Military Hospital.

I was in a little chair.

I still remember when my wife came to see me.

I was in a little chair, and when you are twenty-something years old,

I wanted to jump through the window.

How did you find out that your husband had been wounded and amputated?

That was the problem, nobody dared to tell me.

They didn't because...

in the meantime, I became depressed.

And people thought, "How is she going to take it?"

I don't know, it was a little clairvoyant for me

and...

I opened the newspaper and I saw,

"He's twenty years old, he leaves in one piece,

and comes back with a missing leg."

And I don't know... There were only first names, no last names.

There were initials, of course. And I thought...

But that... Suddenly I said, that's it, it's...

- And nobody said anything? - No.

Of course, I was told after.

And you didn't want to write to your wife

- that you were wounded? - Well...

When it happened she had to be notified,

but I didn't want to worry her.

I told you, when I saw her,

I wanted to jump out the window.

It's simple.

Anyway.

When I hear him talk about it, it...

it brings back memories,

and it's tough.

No, I never talk about it.

People see me like this, with my pants,

they think I live like everyone else. That's not true.

I told you it was a burden. It's true.

At the beach, I can't swim.

Or I have to drag myself like a crab on the sand.

I can't go to the mountains, nothing.

I tried caves, it's impossible.

I can't do anything.

- That war ruined your life. - Yes, affirmative.

It did, yes.

I'd like to say, I don't mean to interrupt but...

For us, the Algerian War, it's every day.

- No. - It's not once a year,

like I see the memorial etc. Maybe we're not there

on March 19th, but...

For us, the Algerian War, it's every day.

When he has to put on his prosthetic leg, when summer comes

and he's hot and can't walk.

Well, people who have a prosthetic limb know the problem but...

And the person who is with them, I'm not complaining, you also live

without one leg. That's it.

Sub-lieutenant Arnaud, Jean.

Sergeant Perrier, Maurice,

Corporal Leoni, Jacques,

Infantrymen Garnier, Jacky,

Couroumian, Paul.

Trollan, Roger. Cranier, Robert. Lasserre, Roger.

Veterans of the section are glad to take this opportunity

to share with their family and friends their affectionate thoughts.

Corporal Jean-Claude Schwabe.

I'm sending love to my fiancée and my family. I'm well. Jean-Claude.

This is Robin. All is well.

Hello to all my mates in AFN. And much love to my fiancée,

my parents, and my friends.

Corporal Cros, 3rd company SP 88106.

Jeanine, darling, sending you a sweet kiss,

and I'm asking you to have courage

to stand the days remaining...

Outside of operations, what was the life of a draftee like?

I think it was monotonous and boring.

When we were not on mission, we were stuck

in a few thousand square-feet refuge,

and we did nothing.

At least, I listened to the radio, I kept myself busy.

We'd hang out. We'd play cards.

We played French tarot.

We ate, slept, and played cards.

This picture was taken in January.

We had about up to 30-35 inches of snow

for about one month, one month and a half.

We were stuck for days.

There was no military action.

Everyone stayed in their tent.

Tarot games never ended.

They started at 8 a.m., and finished at 2 a.m.

And really, we felt we were living like convicts at this post,

waiting for days to pass,

the months, waiting to be freed.

You needed outlets.

We didn't practice sports, we couldn't.

So I had an idea.

We had cables since we worked in a power station.

The cable contained a lead sheath.

We took the lead out, we made wooden molds,

we poured in it with tubes, we made bars.

At the time there were many ads for bodybuilding.

I don't remember if it was Robert Duranton.

I remember because he was in Monaco...

And we bought a bodybuilding class via mail,

and we made weights with the lead,

and the entire team had to do it, but it was a pleasure.

We did it on the roof.

Everyday people did their 15 or 30 minutes.

Simply in order to keep the boys' spirits up.

It was the Far West,

because when we went to Guelma, Bône, etc.

We'd have a drink.

We had to pick a bar with grilled windows.

- French? - No, no, no.

No, no, no. We'd go to

the Arabs as well as to the natives... The ethnically French.

It didn't bother us. But the gun was on the counter,

always with its chain.

We'd pour the anisette, etc.

We got used to avoid having a window behind us, if possible.

The entrances were grilled.

The road to the villages had double bends everywhere.

What we did depended on the person. Some...

I think Kronenbourg was their go-to.

Beer was really a great fuel

because some would drink really a lot of it.

Ten, twenty, thirty beers a day was common.

The few weeks I spent with the legion were completely crazy

because to join the coast, we went to Bône for supplies,

or maybe to Constantine.

And some sections on the road were hard,

we had to be escorted through the gorges of El Kantara,

and they just went to get truckloads of beer.

They drank when they went on mission, they drank when they returned,

and they drank when they didn't go.

- Officers too? - They did too.

Especially the career officers.

What helps? I think...

When you've tried everything possible

to talk to people, to try to...

to feel like you're changing them a little,

after that, you take refuge in your own head.

Books were very important for me.

That's when I started to buy books in the Pléiade collection,

because it was smaller.

- What did you read? - In bags.

There were two very important authors.

The Thibaults, by Martin du Gard,

and Proust, because might as well bring a good chunk.

There was a sort of inescapability of the passage of time.

I preferred being on a mission than staying in camp.

- We had a box of rations. - Some rations were not bad.

I liked the Muslim ones. They were the best. They had sardines.

Sardines, but no pâté.

- There was one chocolate... - They were...

Yes, they were made after.

After the European ones.

European rations were from WWI.

Not WWI, Indochina.

Indochina.

It was disgusting.

It was even medically disgusting.

Disgusting in terms of taste, disgusting

in terms of content, disgusting in medical terms.

The inside of the cigarettes were completely rotten.

They were foam.

The liquor bottle.

- It was jet fuel. - It was jet fuel.

Good for a mouth wash. But you couldn't swallow it.

It was good for cavities.

When we saw the wine coming and were told to fill all the flasks,

we knew that night,

or two hours later, we were going on a mission.

It was wine that had been frozen and put back in...

Then with the...

And let's not forget the bromide,

it tasted delicious.

That's a myth. They never put bromide

in the wine. We didn't have wine anyway.

And we went out sometimes.

We hunted hogs.

They didn't hunt it over there.

When we could get fresh meat, we'd go for it.

When we went on mission,

we came across entire herds in the forbidden zones.

So the cows, the sheep...

And most of the time chickens in huts.

We took a chicken here and there. And we managed...

- Did you pay for them? - Absolutely not.

I never paid.

They were in the forbidden zone, not supposed to be there,

so we systematically took them.

- And you made your little... - Yeah.

That was the only way we could eat properly.

The rations at that time were even worse than today.

When there were parties, we were invited

by the douar chief, who was the equivalent of a mayor,

and we'd share a meshoui or a shorba,

a kind of soup with big vegetables inside.

But one thing I forget is whether I ate salad in Algeria.

I always wondered. I know we ate meat

- and steaks... - You maybe?

- But salad... - Because Michelet was close.

- Dandelion. They brought it up. - It's not...

It was a kind of thistle,

but the thorns didn't sting, they were like hair.

We saw Kabyles eating it,

and we picked some.

We ate it raw with a sauce or cooked.

How did you cope with the absence of women?

Let's says that when we came into town...

We shouldn't say because we are married, I was at the time.

Own it, we were support. So brothels were for us,

and that's it. We're men, that's it.

After a while, sexual desire would subside, it's true.

Isolation... Anxiety, maybe.

I've never seen someone, when I talked to the men,

with difficulties on that level, sexual desire.

- Did you see the infamous MCB's? - Once.

There were mostly catering to the active-duty personnel,

the soldiers,

and more precisely, to the Legion.

There was a series of important missions in the area,

and I saw the...

the GMC's, covered trucks, closed,

that were called MCB's, so they were MCB GMC's.

Two regiments had the authorization.

The Legion and the Algerian infantry.

We also had Algerian infantrymen.

They were the only regiments who had the authorization

from the ministry of armies.

- How did it work? - When they came back from mission?

The first thing was to have a Kronenbourg,

and then

the medic took out his table,

he had the guys' names, he took everything out.

He looked and said, "Alright, you can go."

He got into the truck and did what he had to do.

This is a picture of the MCB truck, for Military Campaign Brothel,

where there were four Muslim women

and six European women,

who followed us on missions.

- For how many men? - Imagine.

It was seven francs.

Five to seven francs.

They really turned tricks.

For a little extra, it was more expensive.

Coming out we were completely broke.

We are here in the headquarters of the National Veterans' Union,

created in 1917,

and the National Veterans' Union in North Africa,

since 1957.

I have a few friends with me. For example, my friend Remli,

who did the Algerian campaign, and then was held six years

in the FLN jails.

He was freed by friends from Grenoble. He has been with us

since he came back to France.

- Do you want to introduce yourself? - I'm the president of D7-Io.

I've been taking care of veterans from Algeria for ten years.

And I live in Tencin.

I have the entire département,

Crolles, Froges, Champ-près-Froges, and Tencin.

- An Indochina veteran. - Were you drafted?

- No, I'm a Vietnam veteran. - Right.

- Go ahead. - Louis Metter, born in Bône

in the former French département...

of Constantine. Yes, alright.

I was re-drafted,

for law enforcement missions

from April 1st, 1955,

to the 30th of...

No, I got it wrong.

From October 1st, 1955,

to May 30th, 1956.

And I'm currently vice president of the UNCFN.

And recipient of the Combatants' Cross.

- And our friend. - My name is Arsène Coital.

I live in Grenoble, of course.

A veteran from North Africa from the 7th RTM,

7th company.

A draftee, like many others.

Good.

I want to bring to your attention

a few interesting aspects of this meeting room.

You have the NVU's flags behind...

our friend Arsène. But also here,

and this was placed like this deliberately, it's symbolic.

You see a German helmet taken in '45 in the Nice area.

And here, you see the remains of a house

the Germans burnt in Vercors during the '40-'45 war.

You also have our prestigious patrons, Clémenceau,

and Reverend Pierre Brottier, who in 1917,

built the National Veterans' Union.

Then you have, up here on the wall,

a few hats that are important to us,

each of them being a memory. Here's my hat.

And you can see the most emotionally valuable thing,

my father's helmet, 1914, exactly in the middle of the French flag,

right above the white part.

Here's how I can present the National Veterans' Union.

And now, if you'll allow me, let's perhaps talk about

the problems bringing us here, that is to say, Algeria.

When you were called to serve in Algeria

in 1958, you were 27...

- Absolutely. - You were a Gaullist at the time.

I'm not at all a Gaullist. I've never followed man or party.

I'm proud of it. I thought at the time

that I'd follow Gaullists,

because it was the only recourse at that time.

- For you, de Gaulle was French Algeria? - That's what he said.

So you went there to defend and save French Algeria.

Save, no. I won't save Algeria.

But to help,

help the French people there, the ones who think like me,

to keep a French département

in France, why? Because it's in the Constitution, among other things.

Can you explain what the SAS were, and what their missions were?

So...

It's huge. That's why I jotted down some thoughts.

We had several hats.

First, I was a village chief. And I had 18 villages

under my command.

In this village, Chouabet, my command post, I had 437 residents.

I was the military representative, I was an officer,

and in that respect, I tried

to guarantee the villagers' security.

For Harkis, families...

The Harkis were here... The Moghaznis, they was called,

were here to help me, and defend a territory.

I was also the prefect's deputy.

I was in charge of the administration, of the community.

I did official documents, passes, I recorded births,

and sadly, deaths.

And third,

I provided free medical aid, every day,

to treat people who needed it.

One interesting thing,

this area hadn't seen a Frenchman before '54 or '55, something like that.

It was a remote area, wild.

Algeria is a country that is under-colonized.

There was not enough...

The French administration never stepped up to what it should have been.

You couldn't ask people to go to these remote villages,

like Outed Aissa or Chaoubet. You had to be crazy to settle there.

- You traveled there? - Yes, I stayed eight days.

I had all the water I wanted, meaning that

at my husband's post, it was raining through the roof.

And I was separated from the Moghaznis only by a tarp.

When they saw hygiene, when they saw we treated them,

when they saw, and my friend Sikirdji could say it,

we gave them a shot to have children,

meaning a little antibiotic allowing the woman

to be fertile, to be fertilized, to have a child.

When they got all this,

when they saw the progress we could bring to them,

they really agreed to be with us,

and to live with us.

This is the only time my wife came.

She was about to attend

a milk distribution for the children of the school.

I don't know one nation that did what we did in Algeria.

Build hospitals, roads, schools.

Imagine, in my husband's village,

in '57, they didn't know what soap was. The first time they saw it, they ate it.

This is an indictment against French presence there...

No, it wasn't against the French presence,

against the French governments,

the French administration.

This is quite interesting, I'd like people to see it.

We re-did an entire village

in brick and mortar, when often

the huts were like this.

It was something very primitive.

And how did the ALN incursions

- manifest itself in your sector? - The ALN would

come through the north,

but not always, it would have been too simple,

and they robbed the villagers.

Sometimes they attacked us at night.

They did it a couple of times, not often, because

our Harkis and our Moghaznis were extraordinary.

They were faithful by heart and with a weapon as well.

And they were French in their own right,

and twice, because they were from a French territory,

and also by the blood lost, like the Legion.

Between 1956 and 1962,

in SAS's, we lost 73 officers, I'm not talking about the wounded.

Seventy-three officers, 33 sub-officers,

forty-two civilian attachés, and 612 Moghaznis.

You can see shooting practice.

They had to be trained, especially because

their weapons were all over the place. They had WWI Lebels, rifles seized

during the boarding of the Athos.

And there were French weapons, like the latest French machine-gun.

Did you have to deal with prisoners from the ALN, wounded men?

Absolutely. In my second SAS,

among others, I had ALN prisoners. Including a warrant officer,

from the FLN,

and I asked him how one becomes one, and he explained.

You had to kill quite a few Frenchmen before getting there.

What did you do with the prisoners?

Well, we went on our mission with them, so they'd show us

where FLN hideouts were.

- They did it willingly? - Absolutely.

Because there was no nationalism, that was not true.

- An ALN prisoner was easily flipped? - Absolutely.

In my second SAS, I saw a Harka,

only composed of former FLN prisoners,

who were fiercely pro-French,

and who were great fighters against the FLN.

Did you have respect for ALN combatants?

Absolutely. That warrant officer, although he told me how he became one,

I didn't mistreat him or anything.

I used him, he came with me on a mission.

He came back alive, believe me.

And I delivered him to... at the time, Camp du Maréchal.

When I left my first village, people... The men, not the women.

Women would go whoo, that's it.

But the men ran after my Jeep screaming, because they didn't want me to leave.

- You had a great rapport with them. - Absolutely.

I set up a morish café, they hadn't had any for a while,

I relaunched weaving activities, pottery,

in the village. It was starting to become...

not autonomous, but it was beginning to improve on every level.

And people were asking for it.

Were you tempted to go back?

Yes, I was asked to.

They were giving me the most beautiful SAS

east of my position, which was great.

The colonel strongly asked me

to stay in SAS's

since I was interested and successful across the board.

I answered, "Sir, will Algeria stay French?"

That's when he lowered his head and didn't answer.

The conversation ended on that silence.

- How did it go with Pieds-Noirs? - Badly.

We couldn't stand them.

Couldn't stand them.

We were there because of them.

A very good relationship. I could relate

to these people, their way of life.

Well, if you spent too much time with their daughters,

they wanted to make you marry them.

But apart from that, the relationship was great.

They were happy you were there, obviously.

Yes...

Yes, they were happy, but not so much towards the end.

Because when they felt we were getting out of there,

they didn't like draftees so much.

The colons enjoyed inviting, on Sundays mostly,

the officers, the young officers we were, to maybe marry off their daughters.

But we'd meet at the church choir,

on Sundays, and they invited us to lunch.

Saturday and Sunday we'd go on patrols,

so the Europeans could ski

on the mountain. There was a ski slope behind

the air post,

and we provided protection while the Europeans skied.

There were all types of colons.

There were simple workers, who even lived humbly,

and there were rich ones, some very rich.

I was in a...

It was probably around Mila, I don't remember the name,

we watched a farm for a couple of weeks.

I don't remember the name, 10,000 acres.

In September, we would watch

the vineyards while the Arabs harvested the grapes.

And you.

As a French farmer, how did you feel about these properties?

It was completely different from here

because they had thousands of acres

while we had a few acres.

I was hospitalized in Blida.

And I found out that the maintenance staff,

the cleaning, the cleaning ladies were Pieds-Noirs.

They were not only people who were in the papers with big properties,

they were humble people.

A population worth...

to fight for I think.

They had the right to live in a country they'd made,

cities they had built. The environment that was theirs.

We didn't have the same... If I can say-- It's not politics...

And I was young, I didn't really get politics, but there was friction.

Because we complained, and all they said was,

"In '45, we came, or in '44.

We gave you a hand," to free us here.

I was little, but I remember that war too,

I experienced it here as a kid.

Did you witness abuse committed by the French Army?

It depended on who was commanding the group.

It was usually a sub-officer, even a lieutenant.

Some did it.

As professionals, meaning...

asking people to be quiet, to do what they were asked.

And others, on the other hand,

went seriously too far.

But the most common thing was gratuitous violence

during patrols or searches.

Because, of course, when you come while people are sleeping,

you can't say the welcome was warm.

And sometimes, especially with women,

it didn't go smoothly.

I didn't witness scenes

where it came to rape, but you can't exclude it.

Some, uh...

talked about having had women, about having raped women.

And believe me, it wasn't fun for the one who stayed on site,

not to have participated.

But I was terribly shocked, and I saw an opportunity to talk about it

with my mates

who were the closest to me in my tent,

and make the comment that appeared normal to me,

and today as well,

that you couldn't act surprised if there was

a retaliation against us from members of the FLN.

We went on a mission, we arrived in the village.

We had to take the women, the elderly, out of the huts.

And there were always special cases. Some guys took out

the elderly and the women hitting them with their guns.

- Did it happen frequently? - Frequently, but not always.

There were always a bunch of guys who were against that,

so we stopped the circus, but otherwise, it did happen.

And when you witnessed violence, did you take action?

Well... We didn't know what to say.

Sometimes we'd say, "Take it easy."

What could we do? Complain?

It wouldn't have changed anything.

I tried to do what I could,

I was lucky enough to be aware.

During patrols, I was always in front.

Maybe I'm just easing my conscience,

but when we arrived in the woods, kids ran because they were scared.

And I stopped mates from firing.

I told them, "Don't you see they are kids?"

That happened to me.

I had a deputy, a company commander, a sergeant.

He had a high school degree, but he was huge and crazy.

The guy always had pliers in his pocket,

and as soon as found a Fell during a skirmish,

he specialized in gold teeth. He would collect gold teeth.

I couldn't stand that.

It's the only time I really put my foot down.

When we arrived at the end of the road,

Fells would throw grenades at us,

in the half-track.

And at that moment, we...

There were one or two prisoners,

but the guys didn't have time to take them as prisoners.

Because some killed them right away, there was no time to get them to speak.

- Could you have committed such an act? - Huh?

In that kind of mission, could you have committed such an act?

It was not in my...

It wasn't my thing.

I wasn't that angry.

During big missions, I saw huts burning indeed.

I guess it was an oversight.

But identifying who set them on fire was very hard.

But if you want, yes, I saw that.

- Sometimes we left burning huts behind. - Were you shocked at the time?

No, no, no.

I admit it. It didn't shock me, because I was committed

to the situation. I regretted it, but I didn't think about it.

Everything that was in an operation zone was in a forbidden zone.

Everything there, cattle, men, and huts, everything was burnt down.

- Men too? - They were warned.

Those were forbidden zones.

- Any person... - Anyone there was a Fellagha.

They were shot.

I didn't see people being shot, but they must have been,

since they were not supposed to be there.

And if they were there, they had a weapon.

In '60, in December,

we had two police 4x4s

that were machine-gunned, and no one survived in a pass.

And the next day, the Green Berets carried out an operation mission

and destroyed everything in their path.

There were a dozen huts, you see.

And inside.

Either they burnt them down

or they were completely gutted.

There was no life left, not even a dog.

And what happened to the population?

The population was always gunned down.

There was no forgiveness.

After the Green Berets, everything was destroyed.

- And you saw the bodies? - Yes, of course. Yes.

- When you came, the bodies were still... - Yes.

- Women, children... - Yes, everything.

They even...

Sometime later, they...

I don't know if they got a tip,

they did a napalm mission with the chopper.

They shouldn't have, because it was forbidden.

Did you see abuse, torture, committed by the FLN?

Yes, of course. In the beginning, when I was near the Tunisian border,

I was told, but I think it was true,

because the witnesses had seen it,

there had been acts of violence

on French soldiers that were found dead,

emasculated, etc.

In the Karata gorges,

we got there by truck, we found one of our trucks,

they were due for discharge.

People that were our age,

they were discharged, because they were married, they left two months before us.

And these guys had been stopped, and we found them with their parts cut,

in their mouths, open belly filled with stones, facing Mecca.

Twenty-two of our guys.

- You saw that? - I saw that with my own eyes.

- And... Of course. - I didn't see the killers, but I saw the guys.

And what did such a sight do on a boy like you?

At that point, if the killers were found...

Maybe we wouldn't have done the same, but no mercy.

They were immediately trapped by a number of well-warmed Fells,

who cleaned up that section,

just the squad's reckon elements,

and ten minutes passed before back-up arrived,

and indeed, they were undressed, and it was really hard.

Meaning?

No, well, emasculated, etc.

You've seen the picture. The guys... The bodies were naked.

And in a condition... Not only out of savagery,

but to stun the imagination and terrorize, I think.

There were 14 dead in a company.

In a truck attack.

They shot the driver, the truck went into the ditch.

The Fells came and killed everyone,

they took all the weapons and left. When we arrived

we were alerted. When we arrived, they were all dead.

Fourteen of them.

Guys from the region. From Saint-Siméon-de-Bressieux, La Mure.

- They were killed... - They shot them in the back of the neck.

There was no forgiveness.

We wanted to shoot ourselves before becoming the Fellaghas' prisoners.

- That was your fear. - Suicide.

There was that fear. After seeing a number of colons

with their sex in their mouths and the Kabyle smile.

- We saw that often. - You saw that?

Yes, yes.

And usually, after the few operations we had in the sector,

when Fellaghas were killed,

they were brought back,

put in the Jeep's trailer and exposed on the village's square

for at least a day.

But it was not the smartest solution,

because it amounted to a couple of colons

found murdered the next day.

We didn't want to be taken prisoner, even if we had

to kill ourselves, but not a prisoner, because we'd heard...

Anyway, for the paratroopers...

if they found Legionnaires or Troopers, they'd kill them right away.

Did you see your mates made prisoners and mutilated?

No, because...

paratroopers don't leave their dead in the field.

Either we keep him, or we go get them.

- How did you react with the 14 bodies? - It was heartbreaking.

The poor guys who were here

to pacify, allegedly.

They died, killed like little rabbits.

It hurts in the stomach.

Then some guys were bitter.

When I saw my guys, the condition they were in,

I understood better.

Before seeing this, I was opposed. After, I understood.

You don't make an omelet without breaking any eggs.

There was a general mood making it so

even the people that were the least inclined

to display that kind of behavior,

in that atmosphere,

the sort of psychological influence on people, saying,

"If...

if we don't get intelligence,

French soldiers will die."

- That argument worked? - Of course.

Most of the time, it worked.

A lot of people could justify their actions like that.

But the most surprising was to find people who...

who felt pleasure, sadistic pleasure, of course,

displaying that kind of behavior.

It was a thrill, in a way.

And we have to understand that some of these draftees...

this is such cliché but it's true,

but coming to Algeria was the time of their life.

Some had never left their whole.

I'm thinking about a particular person among the most eager

for all these atrocities,

and he was a farm worker from Sarthe.

He'd taken the train for the first time, the boat, too.

And now, he lived in a story.

But it was impossible to talk to him,

to try and make him understand that,

in his farm, he wouldn't have abused an animal like he did people.

- What did you do with ALN prisoners? - They were locked-up.

In the blockhouse.

For questioning.

- Who questioned them? - It was the Second Bureau.

We were not involved.

There was always an intelligence officer in the camps.

From what you knew, was it intense questioning?

It was tough. We never took part, I tell you. I never saw it.

- What do you mean by "tough"? - Beatings.

Blow, the Tucker telephone.

- You knew about the Tucker telephone? - Yeah.

- It was frequently used? - Every time there were important guys.

- Who told you? - On little civilians,

the guys we caught around, less,

but as soon they knew they had an important guy from the FLN or other,

he would get the Tucker telephone.

- But who told you? - Everyone was aware.

We knew.

How did it go?

- For me? - That scene you mentioned.

It was in the...

the command post of where we were.

We'd found suspects, of course.

And I wasn't... Because when there were such operations...

Okay, it wasn't every day,

maybe that's the reason it stayed with me,

but some came to get volunteers

to do that, and they found them, which is the most astonishing.

- Even among the draftees? - Yeah.

So...

Curiosity kind of

pushed me to try and see something,

because I wasn't invited to participate.

And what I saw was what you can imagine.

People twisting in pain.

But I didn't stay.

I was powerless to do anything,

and I wasn't looking for voyeurism either.

Well, it happened once.

To generate psychological terror is... I won't speak about torture,

because I didn't see it, as a volunteer.

But the torture was the threat of the next day. "What will happen?"

Those were only words.

But words that were scary.

They didn't know what would happen the next day, what was said...

You never witnessed abuse committed on a prisoner?

Direct abuse, no. I can say I didn't see it,

because those...

I think torture is relative.

Blows, yes, I've seen blows,

- slaps... - Did you give them?

What... No, I never hit. I wasn't involved.

People talk a lot about...

Could you have tortured?

- I never saw any torture. I tried... - Could you?

- Excuse-me? - Could you have done it if you had to?

Answering you today, I have no idea. Maybe if a mate

had been shot or had his throat was cut, I would have had

a violent reaction.

But all the same, what kind of torture? The Tucker telephone,

with a generator used to broadcast widely,

we all tried to see how it worked.

Two electrodes held with the tip of your fingers

- and a mate turned... - For how long did you try?

- How long? - How long did you try it?

Three minutes, but first you have to...

But how long did the questioning last?

- The questioning? - Yeah.

What I saw lasted the entire night, but not the Tucker telephone,

some milder techniques.

It was the Kenish brothers. I remember their names,

officers caught in a hut, they had surrendered.

Well, it lasted the night.

The torture session lasted a while. They hanged him by the feet.

I heard the captain threatening

to kill him if he didn't talk.

The reaction...

You could have at that time,

you needed courage, we should have had more of it, it wasn't enough.

We just let a sub-officer know that we didn't sign up for this.

They went to the captain. It stopped that day, but they took all the men.

It didn't happen again much on site. Once, in another village,

but not for long.

And, of course, when we took the men,

the women started screaming, following us.

It was horrible. It lasted...

several months, I think, about two months.

A good number of the prisoners were tortured.

We saw them go by, because the guys on watch

would go and bring them back.

A big part, exactly how many... But a big number were tortured.

How were they when you saw them?

I went to fetch one myself,

since I was on watch duty. I found him on the floor,

in his urine.

The Tucker telephone was right there, he was still naked...

Like people who were tortured.

I brought him back,

but you could hear the screams...

day and night, it was day and night.

- Forgive me... - What can I say?

What did the re-draftees do? Did some protest? Do something?

We were... We were without...

We were not asked to do it, so it was...

It was... I don't know.

Did officers try to justify torture?

They didn't talk about it.

They didn't talk about it.

What should we have done? Taken our rifles out to shoot?

You need a lot of courage do to that.

I... It stopped, oddly,

we were told on the night of General Gouraud,

I think he was in charge of the region.

And they released everyone. They just kept a few

who left camp, but most men were freed.

Did you feel complicit because you didn't do anything?

Yes. I think those who sent me there made me complicit, yes, indeed.

Complicit of the torture, of the death of many Algerians.

And I will never forgive them.

I'll never forgive them. It was hard for me to vote again for some,

to tell myself it's the lesser evil.

I'll always remember when Gouraud walked by me during my watch.

I nearly told him, "General, we just released people

who were tortured for months here, how come? Do you agree?"

I almost told him, I looked at him in the eyes, it happened twice.

Once, when they tried to force me to be on the firing squad, I didn't want to.

And that other time. But I didn't have the courage.

I almost did, but I didn't have the courage.

I lacked courage, I was complicit, yes.

And I have a wound that will never go away.

Through my education and family tradition, I was leaning left,

because of my parents, I'll admit, who were...

Let's say...

They were more on the socialist side...

So you had hostility toward that war.

Yes, while being eager, but not gung-ho

about being involved in that conflict. I would do my job,

I had a national conscience,

I had the desire to be an officer since I did higher military preparation,

so directly left for practical school at Cherchell.

What was the state of mind in Cherchell?

That's actually where the transformation gradually took place.

We were taught by first rate instructors,

some came from Indochina.

Others had taken part in law enforcement operations.

They all had experience.

In five or six months,

the guy who had been a student, who wasn't used to lead,

who didn't know anything,

they had to change them into guys who were capable of leading 30 guys.

Of course, it was very physical,

there wasn't much to eat, there was a lot of learning.

They introduced us to other things than what I'd learned in France,

a press that reported what they wanted.

I feel you were psychologically turned around...

Turned around, yes.

I no longer condemn the war. I said something could be done for the people,

simple people who are here, we need to keep them

- in the country. - How did you react to the Generals' Coup?

The school, a big part of it, not all of it, supported the...

- The Coup. - The Coup.

- And so did you? - Yeah.

You would have gone if you had been asked?

At that point, yes.

We didn't have any qualms.

We were prepared, and we certainly would have marched on.

- Did you... - We didn't...

Without looking into the consequences. It was spontaneous, but we would have.

Had you heard De Gaulle's speech?

Yes. De Gaulle, no.

This picture was taken on the slopes of...

on the Babors, a mountain of Lesser Kabylia.

This was the traditional dress. The djellaba was on,

but when it was hot, it was just the uniform and the hat.

The usual dress. We were equipped with Pataugas boots or Rangers.

Typical weaponry for a section leader, the US rifle, two clips.

It was in North Africa, on the mountains by Setif

that I saw the most snow in my entire life.

I have a radio next to me, I remember his name, Pinot, from Charentes.

And this is our meal, with our rations, the down jacket, because it's frisky.

I contacted the Harka, meaning the Harkis,

who came as company back-up for the company.

There was a little celebration in my honor.

Traditional dances, a little meal.

And at night, my mate tells me, "We're going out,

we're setting up an ambush." I left with...

- On your first day? - The same night.

I was like Tartarin of Tarascon, in hindsight,

and we just took off. I was in the middle...

It was hard, because people walked very fast. I was back from leave.

And I felt I was completely lost. I thought, "If I have to do that tomorrow,

how will I do it?" Because of a compass, a map.

We walked, set up our ambush as usual,

we stayed part of the night and came back in the morning.

And I asked, because he was leaving the next day, "How do you do it?"

He said, "I don't know the field that well,

but Harkis are from this /and, they're locals. ”

They were our guides.

The resource people like that represent. They owned the landscape.

They knew thalwegs, they knew where to go, the special spots.

I mean, it was 50% of the result we could get.

Why were the Harkis with us?

Some for money, some came for the army.

But many of them, the former Fells,

we kind of forced them to come with us.

We brainwashed them, we pushed for them to come.

I didn't experience it, but the psychological action

needed to take a bodyguard for Amirouche

and make him an anti-Fellagha. You had to compromise him,

he had to do something despicable to the Fells for us to trust him.

And we abandoned those guys.

But there had been a commitment on our part.

And when you read, "I'm going to be harsh," the bullshit written

by General Buis lately, saying Harkis were not real soldiers.

That guy never commanded Harkis.

He didn't see them on the battlefield. He never led any of them.

For him, a soldier is a guy at attention ten yards away.

He doesn't fight.

Harkis fought, there were not at attention.

It's disgusting what we did to them.

I will never forget the months,

the years I spent with these people, because...

I gave them my trust, they gave us theirs.

And I... An event... Before this period of abandonment,

that's what it was...

We received instructions

asking that when he went out with Harkis,

we had a maximum of Europeans

to get rid of automatic rifles, the machine guns.

There was a risk of rebellion or of a change of behavior.

It's very hard when you've been living with people

and you have to tell them, "I no longer trust you,

give me back... And I'm excluding you."

I think all my mates, not just me, kept doing what we did before,

and we're here, my mates are here. And I think

it made a difference, this vote of confidence.

I always trusted them.

How did you take the news of the ceasefire?

I was really frustrated.

The army did a good job. I'm not here for propaganda,

but we had teachers, nurses, we helped the population.

The ceasefire went against what I believed.

Do you remember that day, March 19th, 1962?

Absolutely. I'd just got the Harka.

I left on ceasefire night, I left on an ambush alone.

For one last ambush,

not to kill, but it was the last one, we turned a page.

You could have been killed on the night of the ceasefire.

Yes, but I mean...

You have to think about the context. You don't think about dying at 22.

We didn't find out on the day. We found out much later.

Because news came with a delay.

We didn't have a radio, no newspapers, nothing. We were in the...

No one in command told you the war was over?

No, no, no. No, no. We found out long after that.

Because during that time, we kept operating as military...

- You kept doing missions? - Yes, totally.

MARCH 19, 1962 STREET

Died for France.

In your facility's bathrooms, you have a strange plaque.

It's not strange.

The plaque is about March 19th. March 19th belongs to the toilet,

because it wasn't the end of combat,

but the intensification.

After each war, there were always more casualties.

- Several months later, even years later. - So why use March 19th

as the end of the war?

It's the only official date for the end of combat in Algeria.

When I first heard about the ceasefire, I didn't take it well, honestly.

I always specify,

that I was in the country.

I don't judge the cities,

that maybe were completely different.

In the country, villagers

were relatively very attached to us.

We had quite a few Harkis with us.

But we knew it was simple for them. Two things: they either came with us

or they would end up with their throats cut.

We had the Harka leader

who was nicknamed "Jackal."

One night, during a patrol, they took him and we never heard from him again.

He was probably executed somewhere.

It was really painful.

I had 80 Harkis,

including three former members of Amirouche's detail, both sergeants.

I replaced the lieutenant in charge.

I arrived before the ceasefire. I stayed three or four months with them.

There was something unforgivable for me.

We offered them a choice between a couple of solutions.

The first was to come home with us, enlist in the army,

but we wouldn't take the families.

Family in Kabylia... Kabylia is a very tribal region,

the region is very mountainous, family is very important for the men.

They could enlist, while we wouldn't "repatriate" their families.

Three chose this solution.

The second one was money, they would receive a bonus and stay.

We found one, four or five months in Algiers

in very bad shape, and he told us many others had been slaughtered.

We were emotionally involved,

we felt we were abandoning everything and ushering a massacre.

And he told me, "It's over." We were summoned

in Setif, to the citadel, and we came back

and then...

Well...

It was a very tough experience. We bawled.

They said, "You're leaving." The company was replaced by an infantry section.

We had to say goodbye. The Harkis could enlist and leave their families behind.

I experienced it...

Emotionally... It was awful.

And then, our... We had them surrender their weapons.

In the end all trust was gone.

I had a crate of grenades under my bed.

They could only redeem themselves with a last-minute defection.

So you feared your Harkis?

I feared my Harkis. I didn't fear them but, in the end,

I wasn't sure of what they could do. It wasn't fear.

They could just leave, it's true.

We didn't have any desertions at the end.

- Did you feel bad about leaving then? - Pardon?

- Did you feel bad about leaving then? - At the time, yes.

It was a disgrace.

- Yes, I feel bad. - You see it as a disgrace?

Yes. It was cowardice.

I was young, well, a little older than the others,

I was 24-25.

But I felt it was cowardice.

It's very hard, no question about it.

It's something that I still carry.

I put up French Algeria posters, "Go with De Gaulle", etc.,

just find the posters of the time.

I mean, I never voted De Gaulle again. Impossible.

Terrorism and OAS

News of the time, all clear

The truth about those years

Is still taboo

I prefer to stay

Awake When I have nightmares, I see burning

The fire of embers Kindles the hate

That was asleep in us

Everyone in the same boat

I prefer saboteurs

Algeria is beautiful

Yes, but seen from the Sacré-Coeur

Sixty, sixty-two

It kind of scares me

Sixty, sixty-two

There were not only rockers...

For two weeks, it didn't last long,

I had a section of Europeans,

and we were guards for the General,

and we went from Harkis

to anti-OAS, from one day to the next. It couldn't work.

There were mishaps.

What does anti-OAS mean?

We joined the police in roundups, really roundups.

And we took people to a camp, 20 or 30 clicks from Algiers.

- Europeans were rounded up? - Europeans, yes.

And we had an incident

with another sub-lieutenant who was with me in the company.

The OAS fired at the guards,

and we didn't defend the guardsmen.

- You saw them take fire? - Right.

- And you didn't move? - Not at all.

- You were on the OAS's side? - Absolutely.

Not the OAS, I mean.

Did you understand the officers who joined the OAS?

Absolutely. They were people of honor.

- Could you have done it? - I could have.

I admit I was not much of a Gaullist in the end.

The OAS shot draftees, they killed soldiers.

No. But Pieds-Noirs likes the OAS.

It makes sense.

They defended their territory, because I say that Algeria was the land

of Pieds-Noirs, not ours.

It was crazy at the time.

The OAS's strategy consisting

of encouraging massacres by Arabs

against Europeans, so that the army would turn

against the Arabs, to ultimately sabotage the ceasefire.

But this strategy,

I realized after the fact, after I thought about it,

in the moment, it's about action, you don't really think...

What did you think about these attacks?

It was horrible.

There a scene I still remember...

The OAS had locked Arabs in their neighborhood,

and there was an announcement.

The Arabs were forbidden to go to European districts.

And a 50 to 60-year-old Arab went out

to get food, obviously, and he was

gunned down by a kid right in front of us.

Point blank, his brains splattered on the bag of meat.

We got close to him, a police truck arrived,

or guards, they arrived when I did.

So we call in the man's death, and they said, "Who's taking the meat?"

There were disgusting things.

It was crazy.

At the time, the local forces was supposed

to maintain order in Algiers. Local forces were a mix...

You had to be crazy. Former Harkis',

guys who wanted to redeem themselves in the eyes of the FLN, French military.

The chain of command was

completely unclear, not well defined. French officers would defect to the FLN.

Especially... and... They were incapable of maintaining order.

The OAS were the last piece of ammo,

commandos who had nothing left to lose.

- Did you understand them? - Not at all.

Not then, I no longer followed them.

Until when did you follow them?

Until the moment I became aware of the problem.

They'd launched a fuel truck...

That was reported to me, I didn't see it personally.

They launched a fuel truck, blocking the steering,

on shantytowns.

They planted bombs in the port.

Bombs every day.

Algiers was crazy.

Sixteen-year-old kids had weapons and fired.

It was insane.

At that point, did you still believe in a French Algeria?

Yes, because it was... Yes.

Yes, but to stop believing I had to come home.

I had to see we couldn't

integrate, mix,

such different populations.

You need perspective in order to judge.

When you're 20 years old...

When you're in action, you have no perspective.

And in Algiers at that time, did you also witness FLN abuse?

Many, yes.

There were kidnappings, disappearances, I saw from up-close

at the Second Bureau.

Both sides were equally barbaric.

One day, early in the morning, we saw people

who had joined their villages,

and these people were marching

on the road we were on,

with weapons.

It was the army, the ALN, the Liberation Army,

that was marching in front of the French posts.

And we were inside, we didn't know what would happen, battle stations.

Then we got the order to lay down our weapons.

And then we got the order

to report to Algiers. For us it was Algiers, for others, Oran.

And at that point, there was

the issue of the Algerian-French.

Algerian-French, because they served in the French Army.

They were asked to make a choice.

Either stay in the French Army or join the ranks of the ALN.

So there was a citizenship problem, and many of them,

the majority, I'd say,

these people left the French Army to join the ranks of the ALN.

For us, it was very serious.

It was unthinkable, impossible.

We had lived with these friends, they were soldiers like us.

We shared everything with them, and they left us for the other side.

When we had to report to Algiers,

of course there were convoys, we were ordered

to demolish everything that belonged to the army.

We demolished everything we could.

Then the convoys came together, and we drove to Algiers.

All along the way we were checked by ALN personnel.

And an anecdote... At a check point,

in front of us, we had... In front of me, I had

one of my station mates, from the country,

who was in the ALN ranks. He inspected us,

threatened us with weapons, searched us...

He was acting as a police officer for the ALN,

when 48 hours before, he was with us.

Did you talk to him?

Well, I tried, yes.

But I'd say I was facing a stranger.

A boy I shared my packages with.

He was a very good friend.

That day, I was facing a stranger.

It was a soldier from the Algerian Army

who was inspecting us, armed. And we were unarmed, of course.

You had the feeling that he'd deceived you all that time.

It was very hard.

And I think he deceived us during all that time, yes.

Did you see the ALN entering Algiers?

Yes.

I was one of the few Europeans who were there,

because when the Moroccan troops arrived in Algiers,

with Boumediene and Benbellah, the city was insane.

I was a kid when France was liberated,

and the crowd was crazy and hysterical.

I was little, I was seven in '44.

But I remember well, it was the same thing.

The women's ululations...

Muslim women's ululations were something, everyone goes into a trance.

I went in uniform.

We were not attacked.

There were two of us, I was with my driver.

They probably looked at us sideways,

because the guys didn't understand.

But nothing happened to us.

How did a French officer feel seeing the FLN flag being flown in Algiers?

You cut yourself out. It's impossible.

You, you...

If you caught a guy with the flag six months before you'd shoot him,

and now they were all over the streets. So...

How can you feel about it?

You realize that you went through something useless.

When they took down the French flags to put up the other ones,

it did something to your heart.

What made a big impression on me is when I saw... The ALN

were wearing fatigues of a different color, that was not it. It was the flags.

I saw the ALN flags around us, and it felt weird.

I saw guys risking their lives

to get a flag that represented nothing.

I thought it was utterly ridiculous, and when I saw the Fells

roll out with Jeeps and the Fell flags inside,

I was...

How did it feel to see the repatriates leave?

How did it feel

to see guys who leave with nothing, with their kids crying,

whom you help with their move.

Because we set up, I set up a unit of guys

to help the men move, the repatriates.

They put their luggage in containers, and in Algiers the containers

were dipped in the sea before being put on the boats.

Yeah. How can it feel to know

that French soldiers were being kidnapped and...

through intelligence I received at the Second Bureau, I knew

that some used them as whores?

How does it feel to see

crying mothers with their kids and suitcases?

And on the other side, how does it feel to see an Arab being shot point blank,

a poor guy who wants to feed his family? How do you think it feels?

Huh? You change overnight, minute to minute,

you live through that shit.

At that time, I found myself confirming my desire to be a doctor,

in opposition, in several occasions

against army heads who stayed in their offices,

and who didn't take responsibility for anything.

They didn't treat, they were military doctors who managed their office.

I was asked to abandon and destroy everything.

Practically, it amounted to manufacturing

in a completely artificial and deliberate manner.

Tuberculosis, infectious diseases, epidemics.

Because I treated chronic diseases,

TB patients. If I destroyed the files,

I would create a primary infection epidemic. And it was impossible

- with the means... - Where did that order come from?

From the army. I was told to stop everything

and to leave everything in place. The files were lost.

If I didn't transfer the files,

I would have left hundreds of patients without treatment,

meaning their tuberculosis would evolve, and they would become contagious

for children and people

surrounding them. It was a catastrophic situation.

In addition to the lack of treatment.

One morning, my driver told me

the ALN settled in the village, a little town actually,

and he told me that, only at the beginning

that the transmission would take place.

So we... The scene was extraordinary,

it was very moving,

it felt like I was ending my stay in Algeria.

I had stayed true to my ethics

and to the constraints that were imposed on me,

and when I arrived in the village

on the edge of the mountains, there were hairpin bends, I remember well.

My ambulance slowed down, and you entered the town

on a big... a kind of boulevard... An avenue, with trees.

I still see this avenue with white houses on each side.

And at the end of this avenue, on the left, there was the clinic.

And when we arrived, the streets were deserted,

which shocked me, because it was usually crowded.

Streets were empty, blinds closed. And almost at every tree, there were

uh, a...

men each wearing a burnous, their back to me,

the burnous covering their heads. And this burnous hid weapons.

They carried weapons, they were soldiers.

And I wondered what they were doing, and he said, "It's for you."

Turns out the ALN was still covering me.

They were looking toward the windows,

they looked at the population, a bit like for a public figure,

their back to the public figure, which was me, I was on the front line.

And I arrived with the ambulance, and getting out,

I am welcomed by men in uniforms on the front steps,

in kakis, in combat uniform, the joint chiefs of staff were there,

not only the doctor,

and they saluted me.

- And you saluted too? - I did.

I was in uniform, so I saluted back.

And I entered the clinic with the doctor only,

who introduced himself, he'd studied in France, his French was perfect.

He apologized for coming so late, he said he was in Siddi Bel-Abbes.

I turned over the files, which took a while.

I gave him all my files. He thanked me.

And the population wanted to offer me a parting gift.

They wanted to offer me a portable surgery kit

from the clinic, which I refused. They really needed the equipment.

And with a wink, he took me to the infamous ALN infirmary

which we'd looked for a long time, that was in the village.

An underground infirmary.

There was a pharmacy, medical equipment.

I found Chinese morphine,

equipment from all over the world.

It was hidden behind a wall. There was a house with a moving wall,

and you entered a room in the back.

It was an additional side clinic

for military use.

And then I said goodbye.

There was a sort of agreement. I only shook hands with the doctor,

not with the others. That's how it happened.

On the way back, the ambulance brought me back,

and... Actually, it's very painful because...

Every time I tell this story, I feel awful stress.

And I can't... I can't finish.

Maybe I could pick it up again.

Cut.

My departure was very moving.

On the avenue on my way out...

the soldiers of the ALN

faced me and presented their arms to me.

They had uncovered their heads.

And it was like that for 150 yards.

The farewell to Algeria.

When men will live out of love

There will be no more misery

Soldiers will be troubadours

But we will be dead, my brother

On the great path of life

That we had to follow

Where we had to be

We received the bad part

When men will live out of love

There will be no more misery

Soldiers will be troubadours

But we will be dead, my brother

When men will live out of love

There will be no more misery

How will be the sweet days then

But we will be dead, my brother

I arrived at 2 a.m. My mother opened the window, she saw me,

"What do you want, sir?" Then she recognized me. I said, "Come on!"

She didn't recognize me, I had a beard,

I was skinny as a needle, I probably weighed, I don't know,

one-thirty-five, one-forty.

When I walked through the village, no one recognized me. "Who's that tramp?"

It took me a year to get back to an active life.

I remember in Grenoble's street, the first days,

the slightest motorcycle noise made me jumped. I heard gun shots.

At night, I would wake up. I thought, "It's over, you're here now."

Back in Grenoble, in the beginning, there were three things.

I was surprised there were no double bends in every village.

Constantly watching the ridge lines, the mountain.

We'd say, "Did you see those guys?" The Mergers,

the guys from Merlin Gerin in the office, didn't see anything.

And we saw the guys walking around. Even now,

we follow the peaks.

And the third thing were ambushes.

The Gorges de la Bournes and the Gorges d'Engin

with all these holes, a narrow road,

you always feel like you are ready to bolt

and to brace yourself, the feeling of being unsafe. It lasted a long time.

I left as a healthy 25-year-old,

and I think I came back sick.

During this Algerian War, I think there was

a psychological break in me,

which made me come back as an anxious person.

When I was released, everything we did

stayed with me, and at night, I had nightmares.

- I don't know if it happened to you. - You got startled in bed.

Yes, naturally. I was still in ambush mode, as we say.

You were still in an ambush? - Right.

- Did it last long? - About ten years.

You remembered things that came back,

things that happened there, the ambushes.

When we watched the farm we heard the storks all night,

the beaks chattering all night, we heard...

All night and... That stayed with me.

Sometimes I see those storks on the tall trees,

the eucalyptuses that were huge,

maybe 150 feet high, covered in storks.

They would chatter all night.

Coming back from those 30 months in the army,

like a lot of colleagues, I had six terrible months

of total instability.

I recently talked about it with my wife who was my fiancée then,

she said I was unbearable.

I couldn't stand any remarks.

I must have been going through a management crisis.

I suddenly had to obey. Probably.

And I'd say that's when I really started...

Today, in hindsight,

that's when I said, I need to exploit this,

and I acquired a taste for leadership.

When I arrived, I remember throwing a tantrum.

I came home late January, and late February, less than a month later,

I'd never worked, I didn't know what it was.

The nation took care of me, since I got a letter from the tax administration.

I didn't even know what an auditor was.

And I received a letter saying I owed 950 francs

and some change on what I had earned during the war.

And considering the losses we had in 1958

in the 18th RCP, I thought the blood tax... my God...

And coming home to that without asking if I'd found a job,

I thought it was very hard.

I had an experience after the war

that really shows the stupidity of war.

I used to play rugby then,

in a college team.

After the game, there's always a third half-time.

And at the time, after my return, when I drank a bit, I spoke Kabyle.

And in the university bar, I spoke Kabyle,

and a guy came to me saying, "You speak Kabyle," etc.

We talked, he was a Fell sub-lieutenant

of commandos in my sector.

We shared our mutual ambushes.

We all went to my place with the rugby team.

I had a car accident on the way,

the other driver attacked me because I was

with an Arab, to him, but I was with a Kabyle.

I kicked his ass to defend a Kabyle.

And if we'd met six months earlier, we wouldn't have spared each other.

Coming home, there was no job.

I was angry, you see. I don't know what I would have done...

Well... Thanks to my family,

and to my fiancée at the time,

I managed to find a job in another company.

I went back to an almost normal life.

And I think that marriage

helped me to forget a little.

But I still have flashbacks.

All of them are from where I almost died, and I was lucky.

It was hard, especially in the beginning, for two or three months.

The movie ran in your head.

You thought about your mates, we parted on a platform in Marseille.

But on the other hand, I found it hard.

When I came back, many things had changed,

because in three years things change.

On the other hand, paratroopers were not liked here.

In some age brackets, some would say...

They'd say, "Oh, a paratrooper, you shed blood."

Yeah. When you come back to that...

But I do regret one thing, I was told I'd regret returning your kit.

It's true, if I'd stayed, I would be retired without another war.

I came home, some friends hadn't gone, they'd managed

to be exempted from service.

Everyone had kept living their lives, going to parties.

You really felt disconnected then.

You really had the feeling that the French didn't

know much about the Algeria War. They see a few Fellaghas, some rifles.

I've seen up to 22 planes supporting us.

In hindsight, do you think you waged a useless war?

Certainly, because in the end, the solution was

the one that was asked for in November 1954.

The deaths were useless.

But the war we did, no, because it was not just war.

We built... I showed you this.

We built entire villages. We brought tons of things, built hospitals.

Is that useless? Certainly not.

I think it is the foundation of what you can do for a civilization.

We brought civilization, we showed it. This is still there.

It still exists, it wasn't destroyed. Maybe it's poorly used.

I think we were morons.

Because we went there, and left everything for nothing, 30,000 mates.

Without counting the wounded, about 300,000 thousand wounded.

All those who are still bearing the consequences.

And I say that... In addition to that, we are ignored.

Now. You have to recognize we are completely ignored.

Veterans are morons to them.

The number of casualties is regrettable...

but the conclusion is that we stayed for nothing.

No...

We became wealthy in memories, some happy, some sad.

But in terms of results, no, it was useless.

How do you explain that the Algerian War is seldom discussed?

Because the French are ashamed. Of what happened, what they believed,

of what they didn't do.

And ashamed of their lack of reaction, as it often happens.

In '45, few French people were

proud of what happened between 1940 and 1945.

I'd say it's the same thing. They are ashamed

and don't discuss it.

I was part of the body of teachers who had taught

generations of French citizens that Algeria

was a French territory. I felt it remained

very present in the French subconscious.

We couldn't have fought a war since we were defending the French land.

What do you think you've learned during this war?

Well, for me, I can't say I suffered excessively.

However, I left as a student,

I ended up being in charge of 30 guys.

I had to deal with civilians.

I had practically, like all the sub-lieutenants at the time,

full powers, well, that's how it felt.

I felt I went from a typical adolescence

to adulthood. That's why, in hindsight, I don't regret

my Algerian period, if you will.

I was never again given the responsibilities I had when I was 23,

the freedom I had at the time.

I learned a lot. There's a price to pay but...

I learned a lot, for sure.

I don't know how I'm going to end up. I'm a commercial agent,

and I can't find a job, because people

don't want a 55-year-old with a limp.

I'll find a night watchman's job in a factory

with a walkie-talkie, it's going to end like that.

Once again, it's an adventure. I don't regret anything,

personally, I liked it.

If I had to live through that event again, I would.

I lost my certainties, and I realized that right and wrong

are things better left for young people to dream about.

Maybe it's maturity, becoming an adult.

Perhaps the war helped me become an adult.

It made me understand that reality was far more complex

that our young dreams.

I believe we aged.

In 25 months in the army,

I don't think I aged two years, but ten.

You feel your youth was wasted.

My kid is a ward of the state,

and I always said, if there's another conflict,

I'd put him in a basement, I'd feed him, but he won't do it.

For sure, I'm against all wars.

And there's the others, who adapted more or less successfully.

Henrietti, who lives a few yards away from his pal Puygrenier,

is a construction manager.

Noël Trouilloud, after working as a farmer,

became a nurse in the psychiatric hospital where Pessenti is an ambulance driver.

Dr. Francois Sikirdji is a renowned gynecologist.

Gilbert Gardien is an administration executive.

Jean Manin went back to the factory.

Jacques Beck went back to the family retail store.

Gaëtan Esposito owns a little paint company.

Some are activists at the NVU, like Jean Bolton, a child psychologist,

others at the FNACA, like René Denazzolo or César Delbello,

a long-time teamster.

I don't hear you anymore.

Considered like a sterile subject, the veterans of North Africa

are worthless. Lessened by age,

no longer productive enough in economic life,

we are doomed to be discarded.

Know that the veterans of North Africa won't let their children experience

what they are experiencing today: contempt.

Some were wounded in the flesh. Serge Puygrenier is a pensioner.

He receives 3,500 francs a month for disability. The price of a leg.

Out of 200,000 soldiers wounded across the Mediterranean,

eighty thousand receive disability pensions.

They demand to acquire the same veteran status to that of other conflicts.

It's impossible, governments have been saying for 25 years.

The Algerian War was not a war, but a law enforcement operation.

There are those like Henri Girard, who never came back from it.

Twenty-four thousand draftees died to keep Algeria French.

And there are those who never recovered.

Who carry deep traumas, unspeakable nightmares, irreversible effects.

How many have suffered night and day for thirty years?

There are no statistics. France refuses to publish precise numbers.

But it can be estimated that several thousand Algerian veterans

suffer serious psychiatric disorders.

We followed a field trip organized by FNACA volunteers

for a group of patients treated in psychiatry wards.

Look at these faces.

They all were draftees in Algeria.

This one for example, who becomes interested in the crew

when he finds out I directed Round Midnight.

He was a jazz pianist before Algeria.

I like Oscar Peterson.

Ray Bryant. Monk. Thelonious Monk.

- Bud Powell? - Bud Powell.

- Tommy Flanagan. - Ah!

Tommy Flanagan.

Who else...? I like the guitar player...

Wes Montgomery. That was great. Kenny Burrell.

- Do you know him? - Oh, yes.

- You like him? - Fantastic.

He's good, right?

- You saw prisoners coming? - Yeah.

Dozens at a time. And there were wood chores.

Executions. They had to be escorted.

I typed the interrogations.

The commander, the lieutenant reports.

Then we went on missions. Following intelligence.

Everything was on intelligence, with the Legion and the paratroopers.

- Did you watch the interrogations? - No, I didn't want to.

- You didn't want to. - It made me...

It made me want to throw up.

You know about it? The Tucker telephone.

Oh, I don't want to talk about that stuff anymore.

- Didier Rinaldi. - Here.

On behalf of the Secretary of State for Veteran Affairs,

- I'm awarding you the Combatant's Cross. - Thank you.

Here you go, my friend.

M. Roussillon, René, Germain.

On behalf of the Secretary of State for Veteran Affairs,

I have pleasure in awarding you the Combatant's Cross.

Thank you.

Subtitle translation by: Nadège Traoré-Dulot