Word: massu
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...DIED. JACQUES MASSU, 94, French general who played a key role in the liberation of Paris, the Indochina wars and the controversial 1957 Battle of Algiers; in Loiret, France. Condemned for its brutality, France's war in Algeria represented a dark spot in the country's history, and Massu later expressed his regret. With his rugged looks and guttural voice, Massu was a prototypical officer; he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor...
...situation that created it has certain parallels to Rhodesia and South Africa. Embittered by its recent defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French army was determined not to let it happen in Algeria, and twice the war was nearly won. In 1957 the feared paratroopers of General Jacques Massu, using torture on a scale that shocked and sickened Frenchmen, destroyed the F.L.N. underground network during the Battle of Algiers. Two years later, punishing French raids shattered the morale of starving, undersupplied F.L.N. units in rural strongholds...
...French memories of the war are still bitter, but passions have recently cooled enough to permit a few uncensored examinations of a conflict that brought France perilously close to civil war. First to "bring the skeleton out of the closet," as one reviewer put it, was General Jacques Massu, whose book La Vraie Balaille d'Alger (The Real Battle of Algiers) describes in chilling detail the tortures carried out by French paratroopers while he was military commander of the city-atrocities that had been officially denied by the French government...
...come with flowers and handmade crosses of Lorraine, plaques and crude placards reading "To our leader," "notre grand chef" "to our liberator," "notre grand général." They come in battered deux-chevaux, creaking farm wagons, sleek Citroëns, by chartered trains and buses. General Jacques Massu, who was once sacked for his split with De Gaulle over Algeria and later won his way back into favor, came on horseback...
Then he sped on to Mulhouse, near the German border, where his son-in-law, General Alain de Boissieu, commands the French army's 7th Division. During the meeting, at which twelve other generals were present-including Jacques Massu, the commander of French forces in Germany, who, ironically, led the army rebellion in Algeria that brought De Gaulle to power in 1958-De Gaulle asked how the army would react if there were a showdown with the French left. The generals first told him in no uncertain terms that the army would never fire on students or coerce striking...