Word: pineau
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...Trouble. The politicians in Paris were not much more restrained. The sole gesture of French regret for the treacherous Sakiet bombing was vitiated when Foreign Minister Christian Pineau felt obliged to emphasize that "if France plans to indemnify certain civilian victims [at Sakiet], it is without recognition of any responsibility." The French, in fact, seemed to be under the illusion that Tunisia was still one of their colonies. "Bizerte," said Pineau flatly, "will remain a French base." The only "concessions" the French were prepared to make were ones that served their self-interest, i.e., a proposal...
...French press all but forgot the bombing in their outrage at Bourguiba's move. Foreign Minister Christian Pineau announced that France had offered to negotiate withdrawal of her forces from Tunisia, but only if Bourguiba ceased his "pressure and provocation." Declared Pineau grandiloquently: "France intends to defend her interests, and the Tunisian government must understand their sacred character." To offset Bourguiba's U.N. appeal, Pineau lodged a countercomplaint with the Security Council, charging, accurately enough, that Tunisia had permitted Algerian rebels to operate from Tunisian soil. Said Pineau: "We are the accusers...
Slowly tempers cooled. In Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba relaxed his blockade of French bases enough to permit the entry of civilian trucks carrying food. In Paris, too, there were second thoughts. From the start Foreign Minister Pineau had been privately dismayed by the attack on Sakiet. (When U.S. Columnist Joseph Alsop quoted him as calling the bombing "a sad error," Pineau at first flatly denied the quote, then admitted, "I may have said a few imprudent words" which Alsop had "distorted...
Under sharp questioning from the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee, Pineau finally admitted that neither the Cabinet nor Robert Lacoste, France's Minister Resident in Algeria, had known in advance of the decision to attack Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef. Neither, apparently, had General Raoul Salan, the luckless Indo-China veteran who commands French forces in Algeria. The murderous blow that earned France worldwide obloquy had been ordered by a local air force officer, reportedly a colonel, on the strength of an imprecise government directive authorizing retaliatory attack on Algerian rebel concentrations in the immediate frontier areas bordering...
Only two months after Foreign Minister Christian Pineau solemnly declared to the U.N. that "practically all over Algeria, life has returned to normalcy," the rebellion had flared into new life. In the first days of February, F.L.N. ambushes and raids resulted in some 100 French casualties, and the heavily guarded rail line between the new Sahara oilfields and the port of Philippeville was blown up twice within ten days. A French divisional commander glumly admits that the F.L.N. is "incomparably better armed" than a year ago. The French have begun speaking of Bourguiba in terms they once used for Egypt...