The moderate French Left chose de Gaulle over facing civil war with paratroops

Evidence

On the evening of the 28th the voice of the Front Populaire briefly drowned out all others, with a mass march (500,000 according to L’Humanité; 120,000 according to Le Figaro) to the Place de la République. Apart from Jacques Duclos and the Communists, Mitterrand and Mendès-France—as well as a relic of an earlier, defunct Républic, Edouard Daladier—were conspicuously to the forefront, amid a sea of banners proclaiming “Down with Fascism!” and “Vive la République!” There were abusive shouts of “Hang Massu!” “Send the paras to the factories!” “De Gaulle au musée!” and “La Girafe au zoo!” though in general Simone de Beauvoir detected, regretfully, an unexpected note of respect for de Gaulle. The crowd was also surprisingly good-humoured, not at all in a fighting mood; as Michael Clark notes, they were “no revolutionary cohort; this was no lashing out of popular fury against the Bastilles of tyranny and pride. It was more in the nature of a funeral procession”—certainly an enterrement de première classe for the Fourth Republic. … The theme of “rather de Gaulle than Massu” (in itself bearing echoes from the days of the pre-war Front Populaire), as expressed by Beuve-Méry, the editor of Le Monde, had become the view generally endorsed by the moderate Left of France. In purely practical terms, any physical confrontation with the paras would, said Mollet, “have been a Spanish civil war without the republican army”. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 902 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

When all is said and done, de Gaulle’s achievement was immense, and the gratitude owed him by France as well as the Western world no less. As ex-Premier Debré remarked to the author, “It was a miracle that we didn’t collapse into civil war after Algeria; and this we owed to de Gaulle.” The prosperous stability of post-1962 France stems to an important extent from the consequences of de Gaulle’s coolness and sense of timing in May 1958, and his steadfast refusal then to come back as the army’s man. If he had been strictly “straight” with the Massus, Challes and Salans all along, could the disastrous putsch of 1961 have been avoided? On the other hand, recalling the dangerously delicate balances of May 1958, might not such blinding honesty simply have brought about de Gaulle’s over-throw and replacement by a military junta in 1959 or 1960, or even late 1958 — leading possibly to civil war in France itself? — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1658 (#expands, via linked claim)

In the face of the fascist-Lacoste surge our group disintegrated. What, after all could we do? There was no longer any choice other than between Lacoste and the Front. A third force could have had meaning only if it had been supported by the French Left. Since the French Left was playing the game of Algerian fascism, any attempt to organize liberal action in Algiers was doomed to failure. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 568 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Algeria’s liberal European third force collapsed once the French Left aligned with settler fascism.; France’s moderate Left chose de Gaulle as lesser evil than the paras. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 902; De Gaulle’s calculated ambiguity prevented civil war and French collapse. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1658 (+1 more)

Related

• France’s moderate Left chose de Gaulle as lesser evil than the paras. (similarity 0.95)
• The Left’s abortive strike showed it could not mount a counter-coup (similarity 0.84)
• De Gaulle’s ambiguity made every faction believe he would serve their agenda (similarity 0.83)
• Algeria’s liberal European third force collapsed once the French Left aligned with settler fascism. (similarity 0.83)
• De Gaulle’s ambiguity to the army was deliberate deception for its own good. (similarity 0.82)
• De Gaulle’s calculated ambiguity prevented civil war and French collapse. (similarity 0.81)
• Communists and the Algiers lobby made any liberal Algerian policy impossible in the Assembly. (similarity 0.80)
• The French Left’s inaction eliminated any liberal alternative for Algeria’s Europeans (similarity 0.80)
• De Gaulle’s conciliatory gestures angered the army while winning no concessions from the F.L.N. (similarity 0.79)
• French metropolitan opinion rallied behind de Gaulle against the Algiers insurgents (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• France’s moderate Left chose de Gaulle as lesser evil than the paras. #corroborates (0.95) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 902
• De Gaulle’s calculated ambiguity prevented civil war and French collapse. #expands (0.70) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1658
• The French Left’s inaction eliminated any liberal alternative for Algeria’s Europeans #corroborates (0.60) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 568