France’s military wages war on Macron’s values

On 21 April 1961 France’s most senior generals staged a putsch in French Algiers, still an integral part of France. The military coup was in reaction to the policies of the president of the Republic, General de Gaulle, and his belated decision to abandon Algeria to independence. The generals felt this betrayed their honour and that of their fallen comrades after seven years of a bloody war against Algerian ‘terrorists’ to keep Algeria French.

Fast forward sixty years to 21 April 2021. Twenty retired generals (some four-star), a hundred mostly retired senior officers and a thousand military personnel signed a chilling letter in the right-wing French weekly Valeurs actuelles addressed to the President of the Republic, the government and parliamentarians. It appealed for ‘honour to be restored to our rulers’ and warned of a ‘disintegration’ of French society as a result of government policy: ‘… there is no time for prevarication, if not, tomorrow civil war will put an end to the mounting chaos and the deaths, whose responsibility will be yours, will be counted in their thousands.’