France on Trial

...But what if the "masses" submit or even cooperate...

...From Brazil philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre declared, in a challenging letter to the tribunal, that the FLN is "the only true power of the French left wing" and that he was ready Francois Bondy is the editor of the French monthly magazine, Preuves...

...IT was during the Jeanson network case that the "affair of the manifesto of the 121" erupted...

...At the trial Teitgen was a perfect picture of the responsible Government official, and his evidence was heard in an embarrassed silence...

...The chief defendant, a girls' secondary school master, Francis Jeanson, has evaded arrest...

...and as they are regularly expelled from Algeria, where most of the trials take place, this appeal to the public has often been their only remaining weapon...

...Nevertheless, in the past, sanctions have hardly ever been applied against even the most militant Communists in their ranks, and the solidarity of the great teachers' associations with those who have been punished threatens to swell the protest into an avalanche and to involve the whole body of teachers...

...But it is difficult to denounce as "fascism" what the Government has done, especially to the civil servants among the signatories, since the "right to break the law" which the manifesto postulates does not exist anywhere and the whole moral value of the document lay in the fact that the writers deliberately exposed themselves to danger...

...Starving out the unruly and applying the authority of the state to spheres of cultural life which are now financed by the state are methods which, as the London Times has said, are common in Communist states, but they should evoke a much stronger protest when they are used in the West, where freedom is the rule...

...When he spoke of the "war in Algeria" the trial president warned him not to use this inadmissible expression, since officially there was no war in Algeria, only a large-scale police activity against a band of criminals...

...Between those Frenchmen for whom their country should represent a certain idea of humanity, and those for whom it constitutes certain assets which must be preserved at all costs, it is difficult to establish any mutual agreement...

...Lacoste had asked Teitgen to remain in office despite his scruples, but three months later Teitgen resigned—and in these three years he had never attempted to reach the public and had kept to himself his bitter knowledge and the torments of his conscience with the utmost self-discipline...

...The declaration of solidarity was a good means of creating a row, but it runs the risk of forcing to the right those liberal Frenchmen who, while they desire peace, do not want the defeat and shameful surrender of the French in Algeria...

...The idea is: "Once the State has revealed its truly fascist face the masses will at any rate know where they are...

...Involuntarily, the prosecution brought all this to light for the first time...

...They have taken every opportunity of exposing this tribunal to ridicule —and have not found this difficult...

...The status of Tillion, who knows the complexity of the Algerian problem better than anyone, gives this declaration more weight than any that has preceded it...

...But the Government's reaction was, to put it mildly, rather silly and itself transgressed the bounds of the Constitution...

...the state will not advance money for their films, and the participation of a single actor who signed is sufficient for withdrawal of all state financial support, without which it is impossible to make films...

...But then one defense counsel read a letter that Teitgen had written in March 1957 to Robert Lacoste, the then Resident in Algeria, in which he had given full details of these excesses, particularly of the disappearance of prisoners under military control in the Villa Susini...

...There is a close parallel with the policy of the German Communists under the Weimar Government and also with certain radical intellectual groups of that period...

...The experienced lawyers for the defense—including some Algerians who are constantly being threatened with death and who remember that one of their colleagues was recently shot dead in his office by an "unknown" assailant—have shown in the past that they know how to mobilize public opinion...

...What then...

...What is lacking now, however, is the precondition of a common language...

...Even their books must not be mentioned...

...of that joint approval only fragments now remain, of which both sides are making use...

...Teitgen—a member of an Alsatian Catholic family which distinguished itself in the Resistance movement—spent years in German concentration camps during the war...

...The signatures included those of the Sartre group and a number of younger talented writers, philosophers, critics, producers, actors and journalists, among them film producer Francois Truffault and authoress Francoise Sagan—celebrities of interest to the gutter press and the illustrated papers, which is why such wide publicity was given to this manifesto and the Government was forced to act...

...Unlike the deliberately provocative Sartre, Teitgen tried to convince, not merely to deride, the tribunal...

...Particularly in the case of the teachers who signed the manifesto (who were immediately deprived of three-quarters of their salary until their cases are decided in the courts), the punishment for their exercise of freedom of opinion is less difficult to defend, since they are state officials...

...The indignation at the continuance of the war in Algeria with all its attendant phenomena, to which have now been added strong encroachments on intellectual liberty, extends far beyond the ranks of the "ultra-leftists...

...A small section of intellectuals has declared its solidarity with the FLN in word and deed, but a very much greater part simply wants peace in Algeria—not the "victory" of the FLN, but mutual understanding...

...Some were leading members of the Resistance movement, with unimpeachable reputations, who faced extreme danger for their convictions during World War II...

...Another manifesto has been issued by a universally respected personality, one of the few members of the first resistance group in Paris to survive the German camps—ethnologist Germaine Tillion of the Musee de I'Homme, who has lived for many years among the Kabyles of the Aures Mountains in Algeria...

...inquired he Monde...

...Jeanson also gave a provocative interview in which he declared himself completely in agreement with the shooting of two French soldiers taken prisoner by the FLN...

...He had also sent a report at the time to the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights...

...Most of the Frenchmen in the dock are not ideologists of terrorism, but have merely tried to express their disgust with the torture and murder in Algeria (of which they have heard reliable reports) by demonstrating their solidarity with the Algerians...

...This is the policy of the "greatest evil," which he had pursued under the Fourth Republic, except that at that time he regarded the French Left as embodied in Stalin and not in the FLN...

...Only President de Gaulle has spoken about Algeria in a way which met with approval in both camps...

...No doubt Sartre will repeat these declarations on his return to Paris to force the state, which he has already declared to be "nonexistent," to take steps which will unmask its essentially "fascist" character...

...These 121 —in the interim the number has risen to something like 180—had declared their solidarity with French recruits who refuse to serve in Algeria and who avoid being called up (their numbers are small), an action that is no doubt punishable in every state...

...France must avoid destroying itself either by war in Algeria or by giving up Algeria improperly France on Trial By Francois Bondy Paris THE MILITARY TRIBUNAL in the Rue du Cherche—trying the so-called "Jeanson network"—has been through several tiring weeks for which its president was not prepared...

...All signatories are forbidden to take part, or even to be mentioned, in radio and television programs...

...Even such a sensible and cautious man as Raymond Aron, Professor at the Sorbonne and political commentator of Figaro, has spoken out against what he calls an "unjust war": "The French community can be destroyed by a certain way of giving up Algeria, but also by a certain kind of war in Algeria...

...They represent an "amalgam" of responsible members of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) which has declared war on France, and of Frenchmen who have in one way or another given their support to the FLN, including secondary school teachers, actors and actresses...

...Of the dozens of prominent witnesses called by the defense, only Paul Teitgen, the General Secretary in the Prefecture of Algiers until 1957, appeared...

...Producers who signed the manifesto are not allowed to use any state-subsidized theater...

...And when are these books going to be burned...

...The public prosecutor conceived the bad idea of trying to pick holes in Teitgen's evidence, and said in his speech for the prosecution that Teitgen had surely had earlier opportunities of reporting such excesses and doing something to stop them...

...A few months ago he held a press conference "somewhere" and Georges Arnaud, who reported it in Paris Presse, was arrested and accused of "non-denunciation," a crime with which no French journalist has probably ever been charged before...

...He commits himself, if no further initiative for peace is forthcoming from the French side, to support a possible resolution on Algeria at the United Nations and to oppose any nationalist reaction it might evoke...

...In the very room where the famous miscarriage of justice took place in the Dreyfus case were gathered more than two dozen defendants who, unlike the patriotic Captain, are in no sense the victims of intrigue...

...To this Teitgen drily replied: "An expression which is good enough for the Head of State may surely be used by me as well," and from that moment onward reference was made to the "Algerian war...

...He declared that, on the basis of his own experience, while he could not approve of what the accused had done, he could excuse it, and he suggested that those guilty of inflicting torture and worse should be brought to trial as well...

...He replied with a firm "Yes" when asked if there had been cases of torture and other excesses which might explain the attitude of the accused...

...The "black lists" for radio and-television—which apply to non-political programs as well —strike at the very foundations of the livelihood of the artists and intellectuals in question...

...at any time to "carry their suitcases" for them—a metaphor that could hardly have been more explosive in these days when suitcases containing bombs have been responsible for tearing non-combatants and children to pieces...