Algiers putsch of 1961

The Algiers putsch (Putsch d'Alger or Coup d'État d'Alger), also known as the Generals' putsch (Putsch des Généraux), was a failed coup d'état to overthrow French President Charles de Gaulle (70) and establish an anti-communist military junta. Organised in French Algeria by retired French army generals Maurice Challe (55, former commander-in-chief in French Algeria), Edmond Jouhaud (56, former Inspector General of the French Air Force), André Zeller (63, former Chief of staff of the French Ground Army) and Raoul Salan (61, former commander-in-chief in French Algeria), it took place from the afternoon of 21 April to 26 April 1961 in the midst of the Algerian War (1954–1962).

The organisers of the putsch were opposed to the secret negotiations that French Prime Minister Michel Debré's government had started with the anti-colonialist National Liberation Front (FLN). General Raoul Salan argued that he joined the coup without concerning himself with its technical planning; however, it has always been considered a four-man coup d'état, or as de Gaulle famously put it, "un quarteron de généraux en retraite" (a quartet of retired generals).

The coup was to come in two phases: an assertion of control in French Algeria's major cities Algiers, Oran and Constantine, followed by the seizure of Paris. The metropolitan operation would be led by Colonel Antoine Argoud, with French paratroopers descending on strategic airfields. The commanders in Oran and Constantine, however, refused to follow Challe's demand that they join the coup. At the same time, information about the metropolitan phase came to Prime Minister Debré's attention through the intelligence service.

On 22 April, all flights and landings were forbidden in Parisian airfields, and an order was given to the army to resist the coup "by all means". The following day, President Charles de Gaulle made a famous speech on television, dressed with his 1940s-vintage general's uniform (he was 71 and long retired from the army) ordering the French people and army to help him.

Context
The majority of the French people had voted in favour of negotiations for French Algeria's self determination during the disputed referendum of 8 January 1961 organised in metropolitan France. The wording of the referendum was "Do you approve the Bill submitted to the French people by the President of the Republic concerning the self-determination of the Algerian population and the organisation of the public power in Algeria prior to self-determination".

French citizens living abroad or serving abroad in the military were allowed to vote, as were all adult Algerians, both Muslim and European, in a single electoral college. Speaking for the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (the political arm of the FLN), Ferhat Abbas called for a boycott of the referendum, as did sixteen retired French generals and factions amongst the pied noir (French settler) community opposed to independence. In total four out of ten individuals in France and Algeria entitled to vote abstained.

Following the outcome of the referendum, Michel Debré's government started secret negotiations with the GPRA. On 25 January 1961, Colonel Antoine Argoud visited with Premier Debré and threatened him with a coup directed by a "colonels' junta"; the French Army was in no way disposed to let the French Algerian départements created in 1848 after the 1830 conquest become independent.

Chronology
On 22 April 1961, retired generals Maurice Challe, André Zeller and Raoul Salan, helped by colonels Antoine Argoud, Jean Gardes, and the civilians Joseph Ortiz and Jean-Jacques Susini (who would form the OAS terrorist group), took control of Algiers. General Challe criticised what he saw as the government's treason and lies toward French Algeria colonists and loyalist Muslims who trusted it, and stated that

"the command reserves its right to extend its actions to Metropolitan France and to reconstitute a constitutional and republican order seriously compromised by a government whose illegality is blatant in the eyes of the nation."

During the night, the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment (1e REP), composed of a thousand men, and headed by Hélie de Saint Marc took control of all of Algiers' strategic points in three hours. The units directly involved in the putsch were the 1st and 2nd REP and the 14th and 18th Regiments of Chasseurs Parachutistes. Together they comprised the elite units of the airborne divisions of the French Army. Initially there were pledges of support from other regiments (the 27th Dragoons, the 94th Infantry, the 7th Algerian Tirailleurs and several Marine Infantry units) but these seem to have reflected the views of senior officers only and there was no active participation.

The head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, and the director of the Sûreté nationale, formed a crisis cell in a room of the Comédie-Française, where Charles de Gaulle was attending a presentation of Racine's Britannicus. The president was informed during the entracte of the coup by Jacques Foccart, his general secretary of African and Malagasy Affairs and closest collaborator, in charge of covert operations.

Algiers' population was awakened on 22 April at 7 am to a message read on the radio: "The army has seized control of Algeria and of the Sahara". The three rebel generals, Challe, Jouhaud and Zeller, had the government's general delegate, Jean Morin, arrested, as well as the National Minister of Public Transport, Robert Buron, who was visiting, and several civil and military authorities. Several regiments put themselves under the command of the insurrectionary generals.

General Jacques Faure, six other officers and several civilians were simultaneously arrested in Paris. At 5 pm, during the ministers' council, Charles de Gaulle declared: "Gentlemen, what is serious about this affair, is that it isn't serious". He then proclaimed a state of emergency in Algeria, while left wing parties, communist trade union CGT and the socialist supporter NGO Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League) called to demonstrate against the military's coup d'état.

The following day, on Sunday 23 April, General Salan arrived from Spain and refused to arm civilian activists. At 8 pm, President de Gaulle appeared in his military uniform on television, calling on French military personnel and civilians, in metropolitan France or in Algeria, to oppose the putsch:

"An insurrectionary power has established itself in Algeria by a military pronunciamento... This power has an appearance: a quartet of retired generals. It has a reality: a group of officers, partisan, ambitious and fanatic. This group and this quartet possess an expeditive and limited know-how. But they see and understand the Nation and the world only deformed through their frenzy. Their enterprise lead directly towards a national disaster ... I forbid any Frenchman, and, first of all, any soldier, to execute a single one of their orders ... Before the misfortune which hangs over the fatherland and the threat on the Republic, having taken advice from the Constitutional Council, the Prime Minister, the president of the Senate, the president of the National Assembly, I have decided to invoke article 16 of the Constitution [on the state of emergency and full special powers given to the head of state in case of a crisis]. Starting from this day, I will take, directly if needs arise, the measures which seems to me demanded by circumstances ... Frenchwomen, Frenchmen! Help me!"

Due to the popularity of a recent invention, transistor radio, de Gaulle's call was heard by the conscript soldiers, who refused en masse to follow the professional soldiers' call for insurgency. The putsch met with widespread opposition, largely in the form of civil resistance, including a one-hour general strike called by the trade unions the day after de Gaulle's broadcast.

On Tuesday April 25 the French authorities in Paris ordered the explosion of the atomic bomb Gerboise Verte (lit. "green jerboa") in the Sahara as part of a scheduled testing program. The test does not appear to have been affected by the putsch. Gerboise Verte exploded at 6:05 AM.

The few military units which had followed the generals progressively surrendered. General Challe also gave himself up to the authorities on 26 April, and was immediately transferred to the metropolitan France. The putsch had been successfully opposed, but the article 16 on full and extraordinary powers given to de Gaulle was maintained for five months. "The Battle of the Transistors"—as it was called by the press—was quickly and definitely won by de Gaulle.

Casualties
The only known fatality was French Army Sergeant Pierre Brillant, who was killed by the putschists while defending the radio transmitter at Ouled Fayet, Algiers. Brillant was aiming at 1st REP 3rd Company Captain Estoup when he was shot by a legionnaire.

Trials and amnesty
A military court condemned Challe and André Zeller to fifteen years of prison. However, they were granted an amnesty and had their military positions restored five years later. Raoul Salan and Jouhaud escaped. Salan was condemned in absentia to the death penalty (later commuted to life sentence) as was Jouhaud. Salan and others later founded the OAS, a dissident paramilitary organization which attempted to stop the on-going process of the April 1962 Independence Evian Agreements for the Algerian territories of France. A July 1968 act granted amnesty; the November, 24 1982 law reintegrated the surviving generals into the army. Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud, and six other generals benefitted from this law.

Controversy around CIA and BND allegations
There had been allegations in France, reported first in communist papers and then even in Le Monde, that individuals within the CIA supported the coup. However, it was later discovered that this accusation was based off forged documents planted by the KGB in various newspapers. British historian Alistair Horne concurs that the allegation of CIA support for the putsch was "a canard launched by the Communist Press." Only two days before the Algiers putsch, the CIA had staged a failed coup in Cuba against its leader Fidel Castro, known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Regardless, the CIA did not support Challe's coup attempt and U.S. President John F. Kennedy contacted de Gaulle assuring him of his support, including military assistance if needed. President de Gaulle rejected Kennedy's support.

French journalist Patrick Pesnot has also claimed that the French generals also had the support of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (West German Federal Intelligence Service) leader Reinhard Gehlen.

General Challe always claimed he had never been in contact with foreign countries in this affair.