F.L.N. terrorism and G.P.R.A. assertiveness eroded the French ‘third force’ Muslim strategy

Evidence

With the F.L.N.’s new programme of hit-and-run terrorist pinpricks, the security situation round Algiers, and inside the city itself, seemed to be deteriorating again. Pied noir opinion had been particularly outraged by an incident on 31 July, when a uniformed detachment of the F.L.N. had attacked unarmed bathers — men and women — on a beach at Chénoua, west of Algiers, killing a dozen. The incident had provided fresh grist to the mill of the F.A.F. extremists. This selective terrorism, plus the new assertiveness of the G.P.R.A. in the world at large since Melun, also made it harder than ever to find those “third force” Muslims, not just to stand as candidates in national or local elections, but simply to fill the various administrative posts which it had so long been a French priority to create in order to appease Muslim demands. Over the previous two years, no more than a hundred Muslims had actually been inducted into senior administrative posts. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1283

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s goal: how colonial co-optation strategies failed, a pattern recurring across African colonies. — connects to: The D.P.U. block-warden system produced intelligence but destroyed Muslim loyalists; Torture destroyed the Muslim third force and turned French opinion against the war; France armed defector Bellounis into a private Muslim ‘third force’ army (+10 more)

Related

• Rebel guerrilla tactics eroded the French army’s moral terror over its enemies (similarity 0.86)
• F.L.N. terror silenced Muslim informants and paralyzed collaboration with the French (similarity 0.84)
• Algeria’s moderate third force was crushed between the F.L.N. and the O.A.S. (similarity 0.83)
• France armed defector Bellounis into a private Muslim ‘third force’ army (similarity 0.83)
• Indiscriminate F.L.N. bombing alienated the Muslim working class (similarity 0.82)
• Torture destroyed the Muslim third force and turned French opinion against the war (similarity 0.81)
• The F.L.N. terrorized Muslim collaborators and used mutilation as an economic and symbolic weapon (similarity 0.81)
• Algeria’s liberal European third force collapsed once the French Left aligned with settler fascism. (similarity 0.80)
• F.L.N. terrorism in France alienated even its expected leftist allies. (similarity 0.80)
• F.L.N. terrorism backfired against France more than against Algeria itself (similarity 0.79)
• Moderate third-force politics died squeezed between FLN and OAS (similarity 0.79)
• Removal of military pressure let the F.L.N. double its terrorist incidents within a month (similarity 0.79)
• Pied noir factions demanded a second front against FLN and Paris alike. (similarity 0.79)
• France’s last attempt to create a third negotiating force collapsed instantly under F.L.N. pressure. (similarity 0.78)
• De Gaulle’s 1958 arrival threatened the F.L.N. through fraternisation and a Muslim third force (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• F.L.N. terror silenced Muslim informants and paralyzed collaboration with the French #corroborates (0.80) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 323
• French refusal to recognise the G.P.R.A. freed Algeria from binding commitments #expands (0.55) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1436