Chahrazade Douah is a French-Algerian writer based in Cairo
Veterans of the 1954-62 war are defying taboos to raise awareness about the atrocities their army committed in North Africa
“So we rebelled. We refused to go. We wrote on the boat, ‘Morocco to Moroccans, Tunisia to Tunisians and Algeria to Algerians,’” Hutin recalled. Not long after, the boat docked in Algiers.
Between 1954 and 1962, France deployed over 1.2 million soldiers to suppress Algeria’s fight for independence, targeting a population of just 8 million. The atrocities committed by the French army are still rarely publicly acknowledged in France today. Even less discussed are those within the military’s ranks who, confronted with these horrors, defied orders, refused to participate or supported the Algerians. These men stood against a military hierarchy that fixated on preserving France’s most valuable colony and disregarded the humanity of the Algerian people.
Such stories stand in stark contrast to those I had heard all my life, and when I became aware of them I wanted to meet these people and hear what encouraged them to stand against a colonial apparatus that silenced all dissent. I reached out to the veteran Hutin, now 94 years old. Even at his advanced age, he dedicated much of his time to advocating against war. In our conversation, he vividly remembered the horrors he had witnessed.
His Jesuit upbringing meant he had pacifist sensibilities and disagreed with the ongoing war. However, one incident profoundly affected him, transforming him into an open dissident. “I heard terrible screams of pain in the middle of the night. The next day, I discovered that they were those of a boy. He was at most 14,” Hutin said. The boy had apparently been subjected to torture with a device known as the “magnet,” a generator that delivered painful electric shocks.
Repulsed by what he had witnessed, Hutin fought with his superiors. These were seasoned military men, embittered by France’s defeat in Indochina, which led to the independence of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in 1954 — the same year the Algerian rebellion began. Hutin also took photographs of the young boy to alert the world to the routine use of torture on civilians, feeling a need to document what he had seen.
Years later, in 2013, Hutin tracked down the young man whose ordeal had become the impetus for his rebellion. The two men embraced each other. Said Boutout still looked very much like his photo and remembered in great detail the night of torture he had been through as a boy. The photo went on to be widely shared, serving to break the omerta and becoming a symbol of French colonial abuses.
The consequences of Hutin’s dissent were immediately felt. He was marginalized and threatened by his regiment: A fellow conscript told him there was talk of making sure a stray bullet would find him during the next mission out of camp. He carried on disobeying, feeding prisoners at night and refusing to ever take part in any fighting. There was little support around him. “Other conscripts recognized the inhumanity of this war and that Algerians should be fighting for their freedom. But fear turned them into savages,” he explained. The harsh winter and fear of being killed during an ambush turned the rebellious conscripts who rode the boat with him to Algeria into dutiful soldiers.
Dissent was rare, even more so when driven by moral convictions. The army recorded only 420 conscientious objectors — soldiers who refused to wear the uniform or bear arms on principle. The concept of a conscientious objector was not legally recognized and moral disobedience was treated as a criminal offense, punishable by two years in prison. The first conscript to openly refuse to bear arms was a young communist, Alban Liechti, who went against his party’s line. In a public act of defiance, he wrote to French President Rene Coty, reminding him that France’s own constitution contained a pledge to support peoples in achieving self-governance. Branded a traitor, he was forcibly mobilized and jailed for over four years in terrible conditions. Those who followed his example experienced similar fates, finding themselves on the wrong side of the law and often exiled until an amnesty was issued in 1966.
The historian Tramor Quemeneur estimates that around 15,000 soldiers — a little over 1% of those deployed — can be deemed to have disobeyed orders in some form. Most were conscripts who failed to report for duty and the second-largest group was deserters. We do not know their motives: They may have been profoundly anti-colonial or terrified of the war, or have simply longed for another life. History remembers a few exceptional names, like Noel Favreliere, who crossed the Sahara for seven days with a wanted prisoner before joining the Algerian ranks. Henri Maillot is another one: In his daring escape, he stole a truck full of ammunition, which he delivered to Algerian communists.
“The number of dissidents is very low and yet it is much higher than what we previously thought,” Quemeneur said. “It shows that French society participated in the war and supported it, but less than we thought.” While dissent appeared to have little effect on the war’s trajectory at a structural level, Quemeneur argues that genuine dissent is found not in official records but in personal stories like Hutin’s. Such daily acts of disobedience were far more prevalent, though they are difficult to quantify.
Some soldiers did not disobey and still regret it to this day, such as Remi Serre, who, at 20, left his rural home in Tarn, southern France, for military service. As with most conscripts, it was a rite of passage in the institution in which his forefathers had served. He is now 86 and clearly remembers the discrepancy between what he was told and the reality on the ground.
“In our time, going to Algeria was like going to the moon,” he said. “We were told we needed to restore order and that it would be done rapidly. But we realized that was not true at all. We were sent on a manhunt against people who wanted to have their humanity acknowledged on the same level as Europeans. Every day, we wondered what we were doing there.” Although he considered it, desertion was not an option. It carried the risk of a death sentence from French courts and would disgrace his family. In a France that still held military institutions in high regard, “deserter” meant dishonor.
Upon his return, the young farmer advocated against war in a society that had embraced a total silence on memories of Algeria. “What we saw haunted us forever. Some went mad, some are dead and others try to live with the memory,” he said. “But most of us went silent because what we had to say was too difficult to listen to.” Years later, he kept thinking of ways to contribute to the development of a land he previously harmed. At the time, he started receiving a veteran’s pension for his time in Algeria. “I did not have the political maturity to say no to the war at the time,” he said. “But in 2004, I knew I did not want a penny from this money, it is tainted by blood.”
Driven by profound remorse and a deep sense of honor, Serre and his first companions, farmers like him, whose modest revenues barely covered their basic needs, pooled their veterans’ pensions to create a fund for Algeria. They founded the Association of Former Conscripts in Algeria and Their Friends Against the War, known by its French acronym “4ACG,” in 2004. Today, the association counts over 400 members, including Hutin. They are 85 years old on average and donate the 826 euros they receive each month in veterans’ pensions to 24 nongovernmental organizations across Algeria, Palestine and Morocco that support families, farmers and artists in need.
Their first efforts to advocate for greater transparency over the horrors of the war met with little interest and even outright hostility on the French side, especially from members of the public belonging to the same generation. Former soldiers and “pieds noirs” — Europeans who lived in Algeria during the colonial period — would come to disturb the association’s public meetings, shouting their disagreement. Some prominent members of the association, including Hutin, still regularly receive threats via email or phone. These extreme attitudes are typical of a certain segment of French society known for its unapologetic nostalgia for colonial Algeria. After decades of taboo, many others in France are now more openly critical of the country’s colonial legacy in Algeria, particularly regarding the use of torture during the war.
The response in Algeria was drastically different. Members of the 4ACG were warmly welcomed. They tell stories of a population that never considered them to be enemies: To them, the enemy was the French state, not individual conscripts. They see these men as taking the first steps toward reparations, though the French state has yet to fully acknowledge the extent of its crimes.
Veterans of the 4ACG have forged deep connections not only with the communities surrounding the NGOs they supported but also with former “fellagas,” Algerian guerrilla fighters, who, in some cases, were the very men they once confronted on the battlefield. Serre could not believe his eyes when, on one of his trips to Algeria, he encountered a familiar face he instantly remembered from 50 years ago. Joudia Toumi, a former fellaga, had opposed him in combat. He was now inviting him into his house, and there began a profound friendship between the two until Toumi’s death last year.
As the brutality of colonial violence is now once again broadcast live, this time from Gaza and Lebanon, revisiting stories of disobedience serves as a powerful reminder: Even in times when such horrors could be hidden, many in the ranks of the occupiers recognized the barbarity they were complicit in and some refused it, no matter the consequences.
France used napalm extensively in Algeria, indiscriminately burning entire villages and crops and displacing 2 million Algerians — about one-quarter of the population — into internment camps that bred hunger and misery. Forced disappearances, summary executions and the placement of antipersonnel mines throughout the territory were all common practice. Surely, if Algerians had had the means to record how their call to self-determination was suppressed, they would produce images strikingly similar to those we see today.
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