Fouchet read France’s Algerian withdrawal as a victory over itself

Evidence

On 4 July the tricolour was lowered in Algiers for the first time in 132 years as High Commissioner Fouchet, the last of France’s all-powerful pro-consuls, left for home. Consulting de Gaulle whether he should be present at the flag-lowering ceremony or not, Fouchet after a pause of several seconds had been told simply: “Je crois que ça serait inutile….” But as he left the massed bands played Le Marche Consulaire composed for Napoleon after Marengo — something Fouchet would never forget. “It was a victory march,” he explains. “That may seem curious, but really it was symbolic because in these last days it represented a great victory over ourselves…. And, after all, wasn’t de Gaulle’s decision on Algeria in effect a great victory over himself?” — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1621

Categorization

• XREF: The Napoleonic Marengo march frames decolonization as a self-mastery victory — connects to the book’s French Revolutionary thread and to later readings of French retreat as internal triumph. — connects to: Algeria would be lost on France’s interior political front, not on the military front; France ending Algeria was a victory over itself, not a defeat; De Gaulle’s Algerian independence was framed as a victory over French self (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Interesting to investigate whether de Gaulle personally conceived decolonization as such a self-victory, in this Fouchetian sense, or whether this is retrospective framing.

Related

• France ending Algeria was a victory over itself, not a defeat (similarity 0.95)
• De Gaulle’s Algerian independence was framed as a victory over French self (similarity 0.94)
• Algeria’s loss paradoxically produced a stronger postcolonial France (similarity 0.83)
• De Gaulle’s pursuit of national grandeur required sacrificing Algeria. (similarity 0.82)
• Defeat in Algeria paradoxically produced a stronger France (similarity 0.82)
• Algeria would be lost on France’s interior political front, not on the military front (similarity 0.82)
• France could not contemplate Algerian withdrawal because Algeria was legally part of France (similarity 0.80)
• Algeria was only one element of de Gaulle’s larger ambitions. (similarity 0.80)
• Soustelle predicted France would lose Algeria on the home front, not militarily. (similarity 0.79)
• De Gaulle’s cease-fire overture was a truce flag, not a surrender (similarity 0.79)
• De Gaulle regarded the Evian settlement as an exit, not a victory. (similarity 0.79)
• France’s Algerian military dominance coexisted with its political weakness at home (similarity 0.79)
• France’s nuclear modernization coincided with the last troops leaving Algeria (similarity 0.79)
• Porous frontiers shaped the Algerian War’s outcome and de Gaulle’s rise (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Defeat in Algeria paradoxically produced a stronger France #expands (0.80)
• Algeria’s loss paradoxically produced a stronger postcolonial France #qualifies (0.75) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 8