The May 1958 crisis, also known as the Algiers putsch or the coup of 13 May, was a political crisis in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
during the turmoil of the
Algerian War of Independence
The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
(1954–1962) which led to the collapse of the
Fourth Republic and its replacement by the
Fifth Republic led by
Charles de Gaulle who returned to power after a twelve-year absence. It started as a political uprising in
Algiers on 13 May 1958 and then became a military
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
led by a coalition headed by
Algiers deputy and reserve airborne officer
Pierre Lagaillarde, French Generals
Raoul Salan
Raoul Albin Louis Salan (; 10 June 1899 – 3 July 1984) was a French Army general. He served as the fourth French commanding general during the First Indochina War. He was one of four retired generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch op ...
,
Edmond Jouhaud
Edmond Jouhaud (; 2 April 1905 – 4 September 1995) was one of four French generals who briefly staged a putsch in Algeria in April 1961.
Early life
Edmond Jouhaud was born on 2 April 1905 in French Algeria. He was a descendant of early Algeri ...
, Jean Gracieux, and
Jacques Massu
Jacques Émile Massu (; 5 May 1908 – 26 October 2002) was a French general who fought in World War II, the First Indochina War, the Algerian War and the Suez crisis. He led French troops in the Battle of Algiers, first supporting and later ...
, and by Admiral
Philippe Auboyneau, commander of the Mediterranean fleet. The coup was supported by former Algerian Governor General
Jacques Soustelle
Jacques Soustelle (3 February 1912 – 6 August 1990) was an important and early figure of the Free French Forces, a politician who served in the French National Assembly and at one time served as Governor General of Algeria, an anthropologist s ...
and his activist allies.
The coup had as its aim to oppose the formation of
Pierre Pflimlin
Pierre Eugène Jean Pflimlin (; 5 February 1907 – 27 June 2000) was a French Christian Democrat politician who served as the Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic for a few weeks in 1958, before being replaced by Charles de Gaulle during th ...
's new government and to impose a change of policies in favor of the right-wing partisans of
French Algeria.
Context
Recurrent cabinet crises focused attention on the inherent instability of the Fourth Republic and increased the misgivings of the
French Army
The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...
and of the ''
Pieds-noirs'' (European Algerians) that the security of
French Algeria, an
overseas department of France, was being undermined by party politics. Army commanders chafed at what they took to be inadequate and incompetent government support of military efforts to end the war. The feeling was widespread that another debacle like that of
Indochina in 1954 was in the offing and that the government would order another overly precipitous pullout and sacrifice French honor to political expediency. The result was the return of
Charles de Gaulle.
The coup
After his tour as Governor General,
Jacques Soustelle
Jacques Soustelle (3 February 1912 – 6 August 1990) was an important and early figure of the Free French Forces, a politician who served in the French National Assembly and at one time served as Governor General of Algeria, an anthropologist s ...
had returned to France to organize support for de Gaulle's return to power, while retaining close ties to the army and the settlers. By early 1958, he had organized a coup d'état, bringing together dissident army officers and colonial officials with sympathetic
Gaullist
Gaullism (french: link=no, Gaullisme) is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic. De Gaulle with ...
s. On 13 May, right-wing elements seized power in Algiers and called for a Government of Public Safety under General de Gaulle. Massu became chairman of the Public Safety Committee and one of the leaders of the revolt.
General Salan assumed leadership of a
Committee of Public Safety formed to replace the civil authority and pressed the
junta's demands that de Gaulle be named by French president
René Coty
Jules Gustave René Coty (; 20 March 188222 November 1962) was President of France from 1954 to 1959. He was the second and last president of the Fourth French Republic.
Early life and politics
René Coty was born in Le Havre and studied at th ...
to head a government of national union invested with extraordinary powers to prevent the "abandonment of Algeria". Salan announced on radio that the Army had "provisionally taken over responsibility for the destiny of French Algeria". Under the pressure of Massu, Salan declared ''Vive de Gaulle!'' from the balcony of the Algiers Government-General building on 15 May. De Gaulle answered two days later that he was ready to "assume the powers of the Republic". Many worried as they saw this answer as support for the army.
[
At a 19 May press conference, de Gaulle asserted again that he was at the disposal of the country. When a journalist expressed the concerns of some who feared that he would violate civil liberties, de Gaulle retorted vehemently:
]Have I ever done that? Quite the opposite, I have reestablished them when they had disappeared. Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator?
On 24 May, French paratrooper
A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during Worl ...
s from Algeria landed on Corsica by aircraft, taking the French island in a bloodless action called "Opération Corse Opération Corse was a military operation that precipitated the fall of the Fourth French Republic in 1958.
Background
The War in Algeria was going poorly, with the government of France viewed increasingly unfavorably by the French Army in Algier ...
." Subsequently, preparations were made in Algeria for " Operation Resurrection," which had as objectives the seizure of Paris and the removal of the French government, through the use of paratroopers and armoured forces based at Rambouillet. "Operation Resurrection" was to be implemented if one of three scenarios occurred: if de Gaulle was not approved as leader of France by Parliament, if de Gaulle asked for military assistance to take power, or if it seemed that the French Communist Party
The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...
was making any move to take power in France.
Political leaders on many sides agreed to support the General's return to power with the notable exceptions of François Mitterrand, who was a minister in Guy Mollet's Socialist government, Pierre Mendès-France
Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...
(a member of the Radical-Socialist Party, former Prime Minister), Alain Savary
Alain Savary (25 April 191817 February 1988) was a French Socialist politician, deputy to the National Assembly of France during the Fourth and Fifth Republic, chairman of the Socialist Party (PS) and a government minister in the 1950s and ...
(also a member of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO)), and the Communist Party. The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lit ...
, a noted atheist, said, “I would rather vote for God,” as he would at least be more modest than de Gaulle. Mendès-France and Savary, opposed to their respective parties' support of de Gaulle, would form together, in 1960, the ''Parti socialiste autonome'' (PSA, Socialist Autonomous Party), ancestor of the '' Parti socialiste unifié'' (PSU, Unified Socialist Party).
De Gaulle's return to power (29 May 1958)
On 29 May President René Coty told parliament that the nation was on the brink of civil war, so he was "turning towards the most illustrious of Frenchmen, towards the man who, in the darkest years of our history, was our chief for the reconquest of freedom and who refused dictatorship in order to re-establish the Republic. I ask General de Gaulle to confer with the head of state and to examine with him what, in the framework of Republican legality, is necessary for the immediate formation of a government of national safety and what can be done, in a fairly short time, for a deep reform of our institutions." De Gaulle accepted Coty's proposal under the precondition that a new constitution would be introduced creating a powerful presidency in which a sole executive, the first of which was to be himself, ruled for seven-year periods. Another condition was that he be granted extraordinary powers for a period of six months.
De Gaulle's newly formed cabinet was approved by the National Assembly on 1 June 1958, by 329 votes against 224, while he was granted the power to govern by ordinances for a six-month period as well as the task to draft a new Constitution.
The May 1958 crisis indicated that the Fourth Republic by 1958 no longer had any support from the French army in Algeria, and was at its mercy even in civilian political matters. This decisive shift in the balance of power in civil-military relations in France in 1958 and the threat of force was the main immediate factor in the return of de Gaulle to power in France.
The new constitution
De Gaulle blamed the institutions of the Fourth Republic for France's political weakness — a Gaullist reading still popular today. As he commissioned the new constitution and was responsible for its overall framework, de Gaulle is sometimes described as the author of the constitution, although it was effectively drafted during the summer of 1958 by the Gaullist Michel Debré
Michel Jean-Pierre Debré (; 15 January 1912 – 2 August 1996) was the first Prime Minister of the French Fifth Republic. He is considered the "father" of the current Constitution of France. He served under President Charles de Gaulle from 195 ...
. The draft followed closely the propositions in de Gaulle’s speeches at Bayeux in 1946, leading to a strong executive
Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to:
Role or title
* Executive, a senior management role in an organization
** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators
** Executive dir ...
and to a rather presidential regime — the President being granted the responsibility of governing the Council of Ministers, as well as to the adoption of article 16, granting "extraordinary powers" to the president if a state of emergency was proclaimed, and of bicameralism
Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single gro ...
.
Although most politicians supported de Gaulle, Mitterrand, who opposed the new Constitution, famously denounced "a permanent coup d'état" in 1964.[ François Mitterrand, ''Le Coup d'Etat permanent'', 1964] On 28 September 1958, a referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
took place and 79.2% of those who voted supported the new constitution and the creation of the Fifth Republic. The colonies
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
(Algeria was officially three departments of France, not a colony) were given the choice between immediate independence and the new constitution. All colonies voted for the new constitution and the replacement of the French Union by the French Community, except Guinea—which thus became the first French African colony to gain independence, at the cost of the immediate cessation of all French assistance.[
De Gaulle was elected ]President of the French Republic
The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (french: Président de la République française), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is ...
and of the African and Malagasy Community on 21 December 1958 by indirect suffrage. He was inaugurated on 8 January 1959. In the meanwhile, de Gaulle had met the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Dem ...
on 14 September 1958 at his home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises
Colombey-les-Deux-Églises (, literally ''Colombey the Two Churches'') is a commune in the Haute-Marne department in north-eastern France. It is best known as the home of Charles de Gaulle.
The municipality of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises was cre ...
; he had sent a memorandum to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
on 17 September 1958, recalling his will of national independence; he also took financial measures on 27 December 1958 to reduce the state deficit, and, in Algeria, called for the "peace of the brave" (''paix des braves'') in October 1958.
See also
* Algiers putsch of 1961
The Algiers putsch (french: Putsch d'Alger or ), also known as the Generals' putsch (''Putsch des généraux''), was a failed coup d'état intended to force French President Charles de Gaulle not to abandon French Algeria, along with the resid ...
* 16 May 1877 crisis
The 16 May 1877 crisis (french: link=no, Crise du seize mai) was a constitutional crisis in the French Third Republic concerning the distribution of power between the president and the legislature. When the royalist president Patrice MacMahon ...
(establishing the pre-eminency of Parliament over the President in the French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 19 ...
)
*
References
Further reading
* Alexander, Martin S. and John FV Keiger, eds. ''France and the Algerian War, 1954–1962: Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy'' (Routledge, 2013)
* Fenby, Jonathan. ''The General: Charles de Gaulle and the France He Saved'' (2010)
* Jackson, Julian. ''De Gaulle'' (2005) pp. 70–79
* Sowerwine, Charles. ''France since 1870: Culture, Society and the Making of the Republic'' (2009) ch. 21
{{DEFAULTSORT:1958 05 crisis in France
France May 1958
1958 in Algeria
1958 in France
1958 in politics
Airborne operations
Algerian War
Battles and conflicts without fatalities
Conflicts in 1958
French Fourth Republic
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
Military coups in France
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...