Word: massu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...