A true work of archives and historian, the author met with the main players of this drama that he experienced as a very young child. While the little boy has some hazy memories, the adult, the writer, the journalist puts them in order. He has first-hand accounts from the still-living actors of this rupture.
Why this title? A French Lie; simply because from the highest levels of power, there were lies. The president of the council, who became the president of the Republic through a constitutional artifice, went on to give away these three French departments and abandon the Harkis to their fate; this is already a crime and complicity in their massacre.
Georges Marc Benamou shows us the unfolding of these events, the crime exists on the other side as well, that of French Algeria. The author is objective, neutral, and unravels the threads of this war.
De Gaulle fully commits to the option of independence and, eager to wrap things up, accelerates negotiations with the independence fighters. Some have explained his eagerness to conclude as stemming from a persistent grudge dating back to 1943 when he was poorly received in Algeria.
While the author highlights all aspects of this war, he focuses on two tragedies: the abandonment of the Harkis by order of the Elysée and the silence about the massacre on July 5, 1962, in Oran where the army allowed the Europeans to be slaughtered.
Georges Marc Benamou does not open old wounds, but rather provides testimony on this conflict where France, after winning the military battle, lost the political battle with the Evian accords violated by the independence fighters right after their signing. A testimonial book that reads like a novel.
by Thierry Jan
