The Manifesto of the 121 legitimised open insubordination and transformed French political climate

Evidence

Out of all this inflammation of liberal feelings there emerged on 5 September the “Manifesto of the 121”. Sub-titled a “Declaration on the Right of Insubordination in the Algerian War”, it incited French conscripts there to desert. … The 121 signatories were all celebrities, including Sartre, de Beauvoir, Françoise Sagan and Simone Signoret. Most were of the Left and many identified as committed “fellow-travellers” (but, it was worth noting, no Communist Party members); nevertheless, the presence among them of such heroes of the Resistance as “Vercors” ensured that the document was taken seriously in wider circles. … In the course of a few weeks,” says Vidal-Naquet, “the political climate changed fundamentally,” and at the end of October there were demonstrations in support of the “121” bringing several hundred thousand out on to the streets throughout France. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1273

Categorization

• XREF: The celebrity-signatory tactic prefigures later French intellectuals’ mobilisations (e.g. petitions); the no-Communists detail matters for the French left’s history. — connects to: French right and bishops fiercely counter-reacted to the anti-war insubordination manifesto — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1275; the MOC “The Republic’s Impossible Embrace: How Universalism Turned Algeria from the Future of France into Its Undoing”

Related

• French right and bishops fiercely counter-reacted to the anti-war insubordination manifesto (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• French right and bishops fiercely counter-reacted to the anti-war insubordination manifesto #responds-to (0.80) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1275