Algeria was calm, and the Minister of the Interior still had in mind the remarks heard in Algiers during the solemn session of the Algerian Assembly asserting that it had to remain so.
It was around half past midnight when the head of General Security in Algeria returned home. Contrary to all expectations, the phone rang. On the other end of the line, the chief of General Intelligence in Algiers said: “Mr. Director, bombs have just exploded in Algiers shortly before one o’clock. This has been reported by two district police stations. I do not yet have precise information.”
In the following hours, other calls alerted Jean Vaujour. Eight weeks after the conclave of the “22” at Clos-Salembier and eight days after the meeting of the “six” at Pointe-Pescade, the “Novembrists” had just triggered the National Liberation war. The radars of the police and intelligence services were caught off guard by the salutary night from October 31 to November 1.
He left the cold, snow, and greyness of Alsace for the sun and the “azure blue” sky of the Mediterranean. After three years spent in Mulhouse, in the padded-door office dedicated to the sub-prefect, Jean Vaujour (1914-2010) earned a promotion. Against all odds, new prospects opened up for his prefectural career. It would be in Algeria, eight years after the events of May 1945. It was March 1953. The Fourth Republic—the most unstable of the five—was living its final years. France was then governed by René Mayer’s government, deputy of Constantine and leader of the grande colonisation in the National Assembly.
A member of the Radical Party like the President of the Council, the Minister of the Interior, Charles Brune, invited Jean Vaujour to a meeting at Place Beauvau, headquarters of the ministry, to announce his appointment as prefect. “I appreciate the work you have accomplished in Mulhouse for three years, and I intend to give you the white feathers. Two positions are available: the Territory of Belfort and the General Security Directorate in Algeria. Do you have a preference?” In hindsight—as he would emphasize in his Memoirs (1)—Jean Vaujour believed that “this was the first time a Minister of the Interior offered an alternative to a prefect.”
Taken aback by the minister’s proposal, he asked his hierarchical superior for a few hours to reflect. The sub-prefect of Mulhouse hinted that “the appeal of the post, the responsibilities it entailed, the reorganization work defined by Charles Brune to be carried out in the field” made him lean towards Algeria. Ultimately, the minister decided immediately, without giving his visitor time to think: “Of course, I could give you a few hours, but since you are already leaning towards Algeria, I have decided to appoint you there, and that post now belongs to you.”
Jean Vaujour was only 39 years old when he was appointed head of security in Algeria. As he was preparing to leave the mansion housing the minister’s office, the Minister advised him to make a stop at the Luxembourg Palace—the seat of the Senate—to have a discussion with a singular senator: Henri Borgeaud (Algiers 1895–Paris 1964), one of the most influential figures of the grande colonisation. Far from being polite, the former mayor of Cheraga, president of the General Council and senator of Algiers (1946-1959), put pressure on the future police chief in Algeria. What was meant to be guidance for the road took an unexpected turn.
Jean Vaujour received no advice for his new mission. The owner—among others—of the Trappe of Staouéli gave him a speech contrary to customary courtesy: “I told Brune that you should be given the Territory of Belfort or any other more important department, but you cannot be the director of Security in Algeria. This post requires a man born in the country, who has done his whole career here and, above all, is accustomed to police practices. It is a very special profession. Prefects only see it from very high up. Sometimes you have to know how to ‘get your fingers dirty,’ which you surely will not want to do; that is why, if Charles Brune persists in his idea, I will oppose as formally as possible your appointment as head of General Security in Algeria.”
Together with deputy Georges Blachette, the “king of alfa,” and deputy-director of L’Écho d’Alger, Alain de Sérigny, Henri Borgeaud was, on both sides of the Mediterranean, “one of those who already allowed people to say that Algiers governed Paris.” Between the Luxembourg Palace (Senate) and the Palais Bourbon (National Assembly), the Algerian deputies formed an influential colonial parliamentary lobby, backed by the majority of second-college deputies. This reality did not escape Jean Vaujour as he prepared for his new mission. The Algerian deputies of the second college “were the precious support of 20 or 30 votes to save or bring down the current government during National Assembly votes.”
By openly opposing Jean Vaujour’s appointment as director of General Security, the senator of Algiers argued his position. “It is a political question compounded by a problem of efficiency. You do not know Algeria. You have to be born here, live here, have interests here to understand the country and carry out the only action understood by the Arabs: authority, by force if necessary. This is the secret to the respect they can have for the French presence since the events of Sétif and Guelma. We overcame a trial, but it must not happen again. This is not a matter of feelings toward the Arabs but a question of presence and mentality. You have to have lived among them to know them, to know they will respect French honour and flag if we show no weakness towards them. All this is known by the French of Algeria, and those responsible for maintaining order on this land must be deeply impregnated with it. I will support a prefect’s appointment, since you deserve to become one now, but I will do everything to ensure you receive a metropolitan department.”
More than a long speech, a “diatribe,” noted Jean Vaujour, who did not seem overly surprised by the senator’s words. In doing so, Henri Borgeaud “defined himself to me under the aspect that perfectly characterized him: ‘Algerian political cooking is made in an Algerian pot by Algerian cooks,’ a clear reference to Europeans of Algeria.” Vaujour left the Luxembourg Palace and Borgeaud’s office “in deep meditation.” Because he knew well the senator’s influence—president of the Democratic Left—with a Radical minister in a Radical government, Jean Vaujour was gripped by pessimism. As he left the Luxembourg Palace, he was “deeply convinced” that his “Algerian dream,” glimpsed moments earlier at Beauvau, “would never become a reality.” But the minister and René Mayer, Radical-Socialist deputy of Constantine and President of the Council of Ministers, were “determined to play the card of the metropolitan arriving without attachments or prejudice amidst Algerian intrigues.” Henri Borgeaud would not succeed.
Jean Vaujour flew to Algeria in June 1953. While he knew his mission would not be easy given the attitude of Borgeaud, Blachette & Co., he was still unaware that he was arriving in a country with deceptive calm. He would recall in his Memoirs as the plane began its descent into Algiers: “On the evening of a day bursting with light in June, the sun slowly descended over the land of Africa. The peaks of the Algerian Berberie displayed the majestic lace of their rocks against a blazing sunset. The fire glowed behind the Atlas chain. On the ground, the orchards of Mitidja lined up in perfect order, and the deep green of the orange trees contrasted with the ochre of a vigorous, generous land. In the distance, on the misty shore, Algiers the White prepared for the night’s rest. From high in the sky, leaning behind the porthole, my eyes opened wide to this astonishing spectacle of a country with such profound contrasts that one could wonder how so much savage brutality and such serenity could coexist. I was moved because I was captivated. Thus, a few hours from Alsace, which I had just left after three years of ‘exceptional command,’ Algeria, in the fire of its sky and the peace of its land, entrusted me with its security.”
After settling in with his family, getting his bearings, and meeting his collaborators in Algiers and the two other departments (Constantine and Oran), the first six months of his new mission passed quickly. It was now the dawn of 1954, “a moment in life” and the most crucial exercise of his Algerian stay (1953-1955). “Among the fundamental events that marked the preparation of the Algerian insurrection in 1954, one must undoubtedly place the founding of the CRUA (Revolutionary Committee for Unity and Action).”
Jean Vaujour outlined this episode broadly, as an important turning point toward rupture: “It was towards the end of March that five activists met: Mohamed Boudiaf, Mostefa Ben Boulaïd, Larbi Ben M’hidi, Rabah Bitat, and Didouche Mourad. Worried about the growing division within the MTLD between the Messalists and the Centralists, and measuring the disastrous consequences that could result for the revolutionary movement, they set the objective to act as intermediaries between the leaders of the two factions to force them to overcome their quarrels and come closer. But knowing Messali and their comrades, it appeared to them that only the triggering of terrorist action, the beginning of the revolution by arms, would achieve this goal by forcing everyone into the liberating fight. Once the movement was launched, those who had preached Algeria’s liberation for years would have to join, or else reveal their true face. In any case, the nationalist movement had nothing to do with the hesitant, the fearful, the ‘profiteers.'”
Unlike other episodes in the unfolding revolution, the CRUA’s creation did not escape the intelligence services’ radars. “Colonel Schoen had the scoop on this information,” Jean Vaujour admits. It was published in the SLNA’s (Service des liaisons nord-africaines) monthly political bulletin in April, which Schoen headed. The colonel added a comment confirming the information was far from precise: “The initiative for this creation would have been taken in Cairo by former members of the Special Organization (OS) who had taken refuge there during the repression of 1950 and, unhappy with the dissensions between the Messali and Lahouel clans and having received bitter reproaches from the Arab League on this matter, would have acted in liaison with former OS members remaining in Paris.”
Colonel Schoen, notes Jean Vaujour, “then imagined—and he was not alone—that the CRUA would become a ‘tool’ in the hands of Lahouel, whom he believed to be the instigator of this new group’s activity. It is likely that it was through this bulletin that Roger Wybot was informed, like me, of the birth of the CRUA, which he said in his memoir was ‘unknown to the authorities’ at the time.” Jean Vaujour completed his first year at the head of the General Security Directorate in Algeria. The first year of his mission coincided with what he would call in his Memoirs a “stormy summer of 1954.” From Algiers to Constantine via Oran, prefects, central commissioners, and heads of PRG (General Intelligence) and PJ (Judicial Police) services sent him a pile of notes and reports.
Among other alerts, he was told, logistical preparations were “carried out in utmost secrecy.” “And if, at the beginning of September, we learned that instructions had been given by CRUA leaders for bomb-making, we would only later learn that this work was undertaken in the Blida region without identifying the few men responsible or the location of the ‘workshop.’ Endless precautions were taken by the handful of militants responsible for this activity. However, on September 19, an informant revealed a trip by Lahouel to the Souma sector to establish contact with ‘one of the leaders of the autonomous group.’”
Curiously, the police and SLNA agents noted Lahouel’s movement, but the future Novembrist leaders—Boudiaf, Ben Boulaïd, Didouche, Krim, Bitat, Ben M’hidi—escaped their gaze and those of their informants. If the attack on Boudiaf and Bitat at the foot of the Casbah, near the MTLD headquarters (Place de Chartres), was reported in the reports, the “meeting of the 22” at Clos-Salembier (El Madania) in June 1954 escaped the radars. “October opened with worry for some, questioning for many, at least for those responsible for maintaining order,” recalled the head of General Security.
On October 1, 1954, while dining at Maurice Lambert’s—a press and information officer for Governor General Roger Léonard—in the presence of the chief of staff of the Minister of the Interior, André Rousselet, Jean Vaujour received a call from the central commissioner of Algiers, Benhamou. He met him in his office around 11 p.m. “He learned, through contacts he had left in Blida, his previous post, that known nationalists were taking steps to regroup. The news was still vague but confirmed the desire of some men to reorganize the separatist movement’s cells. Benhamou was convinced—and easily convinced me—of a likely attempt to reconstitute the OS. He added: ‘Men are preparing explosives and beginning to train in the Blida district. Some are well known for having, a few years earlier, supported and helped Ben Bella’s enterprise, and others are younger, still unidentified as dangerous by the police services.'”
On October 8, a report by the Chief of General Intelligence in Algiers—brought to the government’s attention—”confirmed that CRUA militants had instructions to intensify their preparations and combat training.” The following day, a high-level meeting was held on the heights of Bab El Oued, near Frais Vallon – Djenan Hassan. There, Boudiaf, Ben Boulaïd, Krim, Didouche, Ben M’hidi, and Bitat discussed, for the first time, the draft of the November 1 Appeal, the proclamation of the Revolution. This text was approved on October 23 at the Pointe Pescade conclave (Raïs Hamidou), at the home of the Boukechoura brothers. Like the meeting of the “22,” these crucial meetings of October 10 and 23 also escaped intelligence service radars.
Since October 15, security meetings had multiplied. Two took place in Constantine, one involving all the security decision-makers in Algeria: the prefect of Constantine Pierre Dupuch, the director of General Security Jean Vaujour, the commander-in-chief of the 10th military region (Algeria), General Paul Cherrière, the head of the Constantine division, General Paul Spillmann, and the Resident General in Tunisia, General Boyer de Latour. The latter was invited due to concerns that the situation in Tunisia might affect Algeria. “Thus ended October 1954,” wrote Jean Vaujour in his Memoirs. “Algeria was calm, and the Minister of the Interior still had in mind the statements heard in Algiers during the solemn session of the Algerian Assembly, affirming that it had to remain so.”
During the night of October 31 to November 1, 1954, Jean Vaujour was concluding yet another long workday. “It must have been around half past midnight when we parted. I had barely returned home when the phone rang.” On the other end: Commissioner Carcenac, head of General Intelligence in Algiers. “Mr. Director, bombs have just exploded in Algiers shortly before one o’clock. This has been reported by two district police stations. I do not yet have precise information.”
Similar calls followed from Oran and Constantine. Prefects, central commissioners, and regional heads of General Intelligence reported to Jean Vaujour and the Governor General attacks and bombings in Algiers and its close suburbs, in the Aurès, Kabylia, and Oranese regions. Initially, information was fragmentary. Over the hours, both Algiers and Paris realized, supported by intelligence bulletins, that the actions were coordinated. The national liberation war had begun.